BEECHEI 
Royal 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

I 1 D STATES OF LHEBICA. 



JScofcs bg Ibenrg WLavh Beecber. 

Patriotic Addresses 

On Slavery, Civil War (including the Speeches in England, 
iSfo), and Civil Liberty in the United States. With a Review 
of his Personality and Political Influence by John R. Howard. 
8vo. Cloth, $2.75; cloth, gilt, $3.25; half mor,, red edges, $4.25. 

A Summer in England. 

Addresses, Lectures, and Sermons delivered there in 18S6. 
With account of the trip by Maj. Jas. B. Pond. Photo-artotype 
portrait. Cloth, gilt top, $2.00. 

Evolution and Religion. 
Part I. — Theoretical and Doctrinal ; paper, 50 cts. Part II. — 
Practical and Vital; paper, $1.00. The two Parts in one vol- 
ume, cloth, $1.50; half mor., red edges, $2.25. 

Yale Lectures on Preaching. 

I. — Personal Elements; II. — Social and Religious Machinery; 
III. — Christian Doctrines and their Use. Thirty-three Lectures. 
960 pages. Three volumes in one. Vellum cloth, $2.00. 

Comforting Thoughts 

For those in Bereavement, Illness, and Adversity. Compiled 
by Irene Ovington. _ With Vignettes. Cloth, limp, 75 cts. ; 
cloth, gilt, $1.00; cushioned sealskin, gilt edges, $2.00. 

Beecher as a Humorist. 

Selections of Wit and Humor from his Works. Compiled by 
Eleanor Kirk. Vellum cloth, $1.00; half calf, $2.00. 
Sermons. 

Ellinwood's Reports. Volumes of 1873-4: October, 1882, to 
April, 1883. Vellum cloth. Per volume, $1.50. 

Plymouth Pulpit, back numbers, 5 cts. ; assorted lots, 50 
cts. per dozen. Send for list. 

Royal Truths ^ 

Reported from his Spoken Words. Fourth American from 
Sixth English Edition. Cloth, $1.25 ; half calf, $2.00. 

Norwood ; 

Or, Village Life in New England. _ Mr. Beecher's Only 
Novel. Illustrated. Cloth, Popular Edition, $1.25. 

Lectures to Young Men 

On Various Important Subjects. Cloth, $1.50. 



FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 

27 Park Place, New York. 



ROYAL TRUTHS 



REPORTED FROM THE SPOKEN WORDS 



OF 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 



FOURTH AMERICAN FROM THE SIXTH ENGLISH EDITION 



r NOV/ 0]887 



NEW YORK 
FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT 

1887 



r^HE LIBRARY 
Of COMORE»*I 

|wAlHl»OI2Sl 



mi 



Congress, in the year 1S66, by 
TICKNOR & II ELDS, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 

.:, by FORDS, HOWARD, & IIULCERT, in 1887. 











NOTE 



ly/TR. BEECHER'S letter to Mr. James T. Fields, of 
^ Ticknor & Fields, tlie first American publishers of 

■"Royal Truths," tells how he happened upon this unknown 
book of his own unconscious making. Mr. Beecher's say- 
ings were always full of his peculiar spirit, and easily recog- 
nizable. A parishioner of his was once astonished to notice 
his familiar style in a number of the "wit and wisdom" 
paragraphs of an illustrated almanac, issued by one of the 
large religious publishing societies, but without any mention 
■of his name. This was the more surprising, as the society 
was then not at all friendly to him or his teachings. On 
being asked about it, Mr. Beecher's eye twinkled, and he 
replied, "They like the doctrine better than the doctor; 
they have used me anonymously for years." 

These "Royal Truths," like others of his utterance, found 
wide acceptance in earlier years, and are now reprinted for 
those who will prize them. 

- FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT. 



UTew York, October, 1887. 







PREFATORY. 

jl/TY DEAR MR. FIELDS, — I comply with 
•^ your request and send you a copy of " Roy- 
al Truths." Its history is this: When, in the 

summer of 1863, I landed in England, my first 

trip was to Northern Wales. I arrived late on 

irday at Bedgellert, and spent Sunday there. 

An estimable young Welsh clergyman called to 

lest me to preach, which, yet drenched with 

ocean, I declined to do. In the course of 

conversation he spoke of having read my works, 

and mentioned " Royal Truths " among the 

number. Supposing him to have mistaken the 

of "Life Thoughts/ 9 I corrected him. 

"Yes, 1 I d 'Life Thoughts/ too; hut 

ul Truths,' 1 mcan. ,, " Rut, my dear sir, 

h work of mine. I never issued 

a work, nor heard of it. If it exist, it 

must be by other person." — No; he was 

red that 1 Bhould find it at Stra- 



PREFATORY. 

han's in London ! Sure enough, on reaching the 
capital, I found a book by myself, of which I 
had never heard. It seems that some one had 
taken from my sermons, published every week, 
such extracts as were fitted for standing alone, 
and framed them into a book, baptizing it " Roy- 
al Truths," of which, as you will see by the 
copy which I send you, six editions had been 
published in 1862, and I know not how many 
since. The book is, therefore, mine, and not 
mine. I furnished the contents, but neither 
selected them, nor gave them a name. 

My surprise at this unconscious authorship 
would have been greater, if I had not already 
had a not dissimilar experience, which, perhaps, 
it may be amusing to narrate. 

In 1861 or 1862, a gentleman in New York 
happened into a friend's store, a publisher, who 
handed him a little book, called " Aids to Prayer," 
saying that it was an English work, just sent 
over to him, and that he liked it so much that 
he immediately determined to republish it for 
American reading. The gentleman took home 
the work, and the next day returned to the store, 
saying, " I like your little book very much, and 
always have." — " Why ; what do you mean ? " 



PREFATORY. 

'•The book is made up wholly, except some texts 
and hymns, of Mr. B writings, and may 

be round in 'Views and Experiences.' " There- 
upon, the mortified but innocent publisher post- 
ed the book to mc, with apologies for viola I 
copyrights, etc. The work had, with a single 
exception, been taken bodily from the English 
" Summer in the Soul," which was the new name, 
given without my knowledge, by London pub- 
lishers, to my book called " Views and Experi- 
ences in Religion." Nor was there a hint of 
its Transatlantic origin or authorship, — for fear, 
said the publisher, that others would " print it 
upon him," (I think that is the phrase,) unless 
they supposed it to be an original English book ! 

"Royal Truths" has been useful abroad, and 
may do good at home, — in part, because the 
selections are short, and can be read in mo 
ments, when a book demanding hours would 
be rejected. 

BENRY WARD BEE CHER 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 




:1 LL along the way of life we have premoni- 
tions of a coming future. Our very struggles, 
our sorrows and yearnings, are so many indi- 
cations of that coming state. The tears that 
men shed, if they be of ungodly sorrow, are of no moral 
moment ; but jewels every one, if they are symbols of 
unrest which the inward life experiences by reason of 
the imperfection of the outward life. In this state we 
groan being burdened, the apostle said, not that we would 
be unclothed, but clothed upon. We groan not so much 
because we are discontented with the allotments of God's 
providence here, but because He has given us a concep- 
tion of things hereafter so much better, that our aspira- 
tions rise above the present, with longing for the future. 
It is not so much discontent as aspiration. There is high 
meaning in these yearnings of the soul. The summer is 
passing ; the autumn is coming ; birds are gathering ; 
they meditate a far-distant flight. And shall the soul 
have no sense of migration ? There come to God's chil- 
dren hours of transfiguration in which the heavens are 
opened, the ground is suffused with glory, and Christ, 
our Head and Saviour, shines out royally before us 

1 A 



2 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

And these momentary glances into the invisible world 
are the most precious part of a man's life. 



The crucifixion of Christ was that, on the scale and in 
the Bpherea of Infinity, which we see every clay on the 
scale of the cradle and the nursery. And the brightest 
thing which we see in this world is not the most conspic- 
uous thing ; it is the most hidden and obscure, — it is the 
accepting of life, as the mother does, for the sake of -an- 
other life, — it is the accepting that love as the centre of 
attraction, and the point around which it revolves, and 
making night and day glad and songful and cheerful, only 
fo cause it gives permission to yield everything a tribute 
to another nature, — to the service of another and an un- 
requiting being, — for the least helpful and least requiting 
thing is an overgrown child. And there is a love bright- 
er than the morning sun, fairer than the evening star, 
nstant than either, — there is a love sweeter 
tlian all the ] - in the fields to-day, clearer than 

the whole air that till- the earth to-day, — the love most 
. and therefore most divine, that makes suffering 
itself most Bweet, and Borrow pleasure, — that love which 
other bears to the child, — the mother that is in par- 
It is the only our that glows with any consider- 

mblance to th central fire from which it 

i: is a revelation of the. love of God, it is a suf- 
elf-hood, the whole being, 
OSed real instrument for others' welfare ; 

that which i to me, above all other things, 

ime into the world to ex- 
it, by coming, then by the way in 
I, to expn is, as we understand life, charac- 
ict, by the way in which He died. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 3 

The Apostle Paul, with extraordinary courage and 
fidelity, set forth, against the whole reigning intellectual 
forces of the world, his faith in Christ.* He insisted on 
presenting that side of Christ's life and history which was 
the least acceptable to the world, which was most repul- 
sive to educated men. To us, now, there can be no full 
sympathy with that hatred of Christ crucified which then 
existed. Now it is nothing to preach Christ crucified, or 
the cross of Christ, in the ordinary methods, for that sym- 
bol has reigned for fifteen hundred years supreme in art, 
in literature, in religion. The cross has twined around 
it every association of dignity and beauty in the world. 
Not one other thing has received from the fertile minds 
and the all-fashioning hands of men of genius so many 
extrinsic beauties as the cross of Christ. Millions never 
hear of it without a throb, nor see it without a genuflec- 
tion. It dawns upon the child in the cradle next to its 
own mother's face, and it is the last thing from which 
the light disappears when this child, in old age, is dying. 
The cross is now as universal and as beautiful to the 
associations and the memories of men, as then it was rare, 
peculiar, and odious ; it is that which now to us is not 
only suggestive of a fact in Christ's history, but it is also 
a memorial of two thousand years of history. Around that 
simple cross-wood the heart of the world has gathered for 
twenty centuries its stores of admiration, of love, of devo- 
tion. But none of this w r as then known when the apostle 
entered upon his solitary way. It was then the very sign 
and symbol of ignominy. It was as far toward the bot- 
tom of disgrace as now it is toward the top of honor. It 
was the convict's mark then ; it was the slave's, the crim- 
inal's sign ; it was a hundred times more odious then than 

* See 1 Cor. i. 17, 18. 



4 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Hows" now; but lhat word is 

I may ye! I - able too, when it 

fruit There ia no word 

eep and acknowl- 

•.1 universal on that belonged to the 



WHEM a musician i- called to perform music which lie 
has .1. lie knows that 

many will call for melodi iiple airs, 

and he may I ratify their taste; but if he 

hat in the congregation there is one Mozart, or 
thoven, who La able to follow him through all the? 
intricacies of harmony, as he rises up to the majesties of 
- thought, and feeling, and imagina- 
tion, that one single musician will inspire him and re- 
I him more than the thousands of those who know 
only how to take in the lowest forma of his exhibition. 
N Ofl only live among men, but there are airy 

thetic lookers-on, that see 

know and appreci _ ~ and 

And if we ••an bring o this, it 

f vulgar praise, and al 

any d a we may feel lor the want of appreci- 

It is i airy 

• horn we live illy than 

. men. We i , that by 

-. 

; 

that 
I that and how 

1 magnai 



BOYAL TRUTHS. 5 

icies than the lower; that understands how much more 
noble and admirable art the things which the soul does 
than the things that the mind does, and how much more 
noble aud admirable are the things which the mind does 
than the things which the body does. All. therefore, 
whim is hidden in obscurity in this world, is reserved 
for disclosure in the world to come. 



The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the 
morning star makes in rising. All great developments 
complete themselves in the world, and modestly wait in 
silence, praising themselves never, and announcing them- 
selves not at all. TTe must be sensitive, and sensible, if 
Id see the beginnings and endings of great things. 
That is our part. 



When Christ was teaching men what was the highest 
conception oi human character, what did He say? The 
Serene, large-browed intellect,' — the deep. calm, untrou- 
bled oceanic enthusiasm. — the exquisite sensitiveness of 
taste and purity combine:!. — that large, flexible nature 
which revolves in orbits of beauty, and stands the point 
of admiration to all round about, beautiful and harmless! 
Was that the conception of character? Such is the notion 
we have of beauty and genius. These are the men that 
we love to paint to ourselves, — men that do no harm, to 
be sure, but that are self-cultured, and work off every part 
of themselves with elaborate workings, and make them- 
selves, according to some preconceived model of human 
development, symmetrical, and large, and manly, and 
perfect, and stand simply in that self-poised strength and 
power! Does Christ say that is the idea of character? 
Not at all. Self-seeking and self-building, as an end-, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ply hateful to God, as they should be hateful to 
men, but are not What, then, was Christ's ideal of 
Weakness, subtleness, insignificance of char- 
no! but power in the head, and power in the 
1 art in the hand, — the sovereignty of man in 
i si of hia faculties; but the whole of it 

. with sweetest humiliation of love, and carried down 
the lowest place and meanest, to that which is weak. 
It is !i glorified with purity and beautified with 

, making itself a Bervant, as Christ i- said to have 
made Himself a servant. The Divine ideal of character 
it it is a power, no matter how resplendent, how 
high, BO that it is devoted to the welfare of those who are 
t us : first to those who are the lowest and furthest re- 
moved from our taste and sympathy. The man you hate 
i- the man you ought to love most, that is, with benefi- 
ce • ■ ; tii" man that Bhocks cwry taste and sentiment is 
the man who should receive the contribution of your 
j, — that is tho man into whom and around whom 
are to pour yourself, that by all the influences in 
i you are superior to him, lie may find the ocean 
• ur life buoying him up and taking him from out 
• iud ami -and in which he Bwelters, and rivine him 
~t launching and Bea room. That is the conception 
• character. 



li Lb narrated of a Moravian. I know not if in any 

>uld lie found an instance that 
il'l thi-: — A Moravian Christian heard of the 

the W* 9l 1 dia Blaves, and desired to he a 

I at when ho reached them, he found 

re driven to the field bo early, and came home so 

that thi i life or Btrength in them to listen 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 7 

to his instructions ; neither did they believe that any man 
whose face was white had a heart that was other than 
black, and they would not listen to him ; and he found, at 
last, that there was no way to preach to them unless he 
preached to them in their sufferings while he suffered 
with them himself. He sold himself, and was driven 
afield with them himself, that while he suffered and 
toiled as they did. he might have opportunity to preach 
to them the unsearchable riches of Christ. Now, I ask 
if there reigns a king upon his throne that was so lordly, 
so large a man as that poor, sweating Moravian, who, for 
the sake of serving these poor, miserable, dying slaves in 
the field, had sold himself into like estate to preach the 
riches of Christ. The largest conception of manhood i3 
that which knows how to take itself, as though of no 
consequence to itself, but of all possible consequence to 
those to whom it may make itself an offering, a pow- 
er, and an instruction. 



It is said that no one can at first take in the scope and 
magnitude of St. Peter's at Rome, and that the first im- 
pression is one of disappointment. Our senses are sc 
unused to large measurements, that they do not take the 
meaning of such a gigantic cathedral until they have been 
practised to do it. It is only when, by a patient waiting 
and growing familiarity, our senses have opened and 
grown to a nobler use, that the full meaning of such a 
massive structure begins to come to them. Then the 
immensity of the space, the richness of the parts, the uni-s 
versality resulting from a well ordering of innumerable 
details, begin to impress the mind ; and every day swells 
the dome, and carries forth the length and width of the 
interior, and harmonizes the multitudinous details unti] 



g ROYAL TRUTHS. 

38, and become only tie means 

fa wonderful whole. 

\, from it. miles and miles across the Cam> 

3 high into the air that sublime circle; 

icent parte are sunken 

bangs upon the sky, as if, 

. it needed no foundation, but hung 

i in the ether, buoyed up a- Bhips are floated in 

I is even so with the Epistle to the Romans. The 

ighth chapter is the dome of the cathedral. 

I .\n whole life that can interpret it. At 

ling it seems confused. A certain wonder 

wealth of meaning IS apparent, but neither order nor 

harmony. But gradually the parts seem to unite ; the 

eding ri _le words or thoughts goes ti 

a harmonious whole. And the closing v< 

ie, lift themselves above the earth, 

nd into that sacred space where heaven 

1 x - human hand hath builded 

thoughts that hang above the world, 

_ with radiant colors, came from no mortal genius. 

he who filled the dome of St. John at Parma with 

1 of tin* apostolic and angel ic host, 

to her coronation — Correggio, 

— nor I! and king of art that tilled the 

< ape! with the sublime congress of 

prophets an 1 Bibyls — M. Angelo, — reared this tower of 

fill d i nly Bummit with undying 

of artists, — the 

< .od of nil glory — hath given 

the world. And they shall 

olor. A jo -hall not dim, and vapors 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 9 

and smoke shall not blacken them. They shall be fresh 
forever. The child shall see them. The ignorant shall 
behold them. Yea, and most wonderful, the blind shall 
see them by an inward vision, and rejoice in their celes- 
tial glory. 

It is quite in vain for any of us to have a hope in God 
which is valid only in the fair hour of prosperity and of 
health. When an anchor is thrown overboard, if it floats 
in the stream it is useless. No anchor is of any use what- 
soever to a ship that cannot by its cable go down to take 
hold of the firm bottom, and that, taking hold of it, is not 
able to keep the ship. If when the storm beats, if when 
the whole concentrated fury of the storm beats on the 
ship, the anchor holds it, that is an anchor worth having. 
Woe to the mariner whose anchor breaks in the time of 
testing ! If you have a hope that is good when you aro 
young, when you are prosperous, and when you are hap* 
py, but does not hold you when you are sick, when you 
are cast out, when you are bereaved and discouraged, 
when life is taken away from you — if you have no hope 
that holds you then, you have got nothing at all. An 
anchor that not only deceives men with the appearance 
of safety, but that gives way in the hour of danger, is 
worse than none at all — a hope that holds a man when 
he does not need holding, but breaks when he does. 



What must be the value of anything desired, when 
the price you are willing to pay for it is one of your chil- 
dren? What personal pain in watching, in care, in pa- 
tience, are not parents willing to undergo for the sake of 
their children, rather than that those children shall be 
given up to any trouble ? What abundant trouble does 
1* 



10 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

the eager parent take apon himself to shield the child? 

V. what prospects in life, has the parent gladly 

n up for the the well-being of his child? 

11 would one sacrifice his property — the whole 

i be — rather than that his beloved child 
iffer! Nay, how easy it is for love to die 
And how easy would it be for many 
and many a one to Bay, as David said, " AVonld to 
i 1 died for th< e, Absalom, my son, my son \ n 
'1 •• • ss of the record may he rare, but the ex- 
is common. When, then, an emergency comes 
in which a parent consents to give ap even a child, what 
an unspeakable testimony is that to the strength of his 
feeling. 1 e is no other thing in human life that 
can measure feeling like such an instance as this. 
Now, that is the image which God sends to kindle in 
heart and imagination some faint conception of what 
the power, the depth, the omnipotence of His feeling 
'•ward the whole race of men. Consider what 
in mast be in God, where Buch a feeling exists 
and love that it puts into a subordinate place 
Hifl i ' for Bis own darling Son! What must he that 
i'li which rises higher than our love for our own off- 
. ' And transferring that idea to God, considering 
: and n. v feeling in God 

ixperience of the human heart, consider- 
ing what is the wonder of increase in every emotion and 
in God when compared with the corre- 
and functions in US, what must have 
.■lid breadth, and height, and depth of 
the 1 i human Boulsl This is that which the 

up before us in the passage, "He that 
■1 not his own Son, but delivered him up for us 



ROYAL TRUTiIS. 11 

all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all 
things?" 

I think that men look upon repentance and humilia- 
tion before God very much as they do upon a voyage 
from the tropics to the North Pole. Every single league, 
as they advance toward the Arctic region, they leave 
more and more behind them greenness, and fruit, and 
warmth, and civilization, and find themselves more and 
more in the midst of sterility, barrenness, ice, and barba- 
rism. I think that men repent toward the frigid zones. 
They think that to go to God is dreary and desolate in 
the extreme. It is not ! The sinner is an Esquimaux ! 
He lives in ice, and burrows underground, and is but 
little better than a beast ! But if by any means he be- 
comes fired with a conception of a better clime, and leav- 
ing his hibernating quarters, he takes the ship Repentance, 
and sails toward the torrid zone, at every league he is sur- 
prised by the new forms of vegetation by which he is 
surrounded. He has seen oak-trees only about as high 
as his knee. Not long after he sets out on his voy- 
age, he is astonished to see them as high as his head. 
By and by, as he draws near the tropics, he is lost in 
wonder and ecstasy to see them lifting themselves far 
above him in the air. And with what satisfaction does 
he compare the delightful home that he has found, with 
the miserable one that he has left behind ! 



Men move and march, and we must keep step, and for- 
ever move and march ! We are strangers and pilgrims. 
We are not settled. We never shall be in this world. 
Nothing is finished here. Every step is a preparation 
for the next. That is a preparation for the next ; and 



12 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ext The whole of this life is one grand 
b toward life indeed, and life in earnest ! 



thought of Divine parentage; 

all the ways by which (Jod has sought 
the human race the fulness of His love. 
is there that bears the conception of a pow- 
er, an honor, an ease, a glory, an achievement, a victory, 
which God has not taken and Bet in the sanctuary, to 
• uj> in man's mind the divinity of that love which lie 
manifested by the gift of His own beloved Son, — a love 
which i> more than motherhood, or fatherhood, or broth- 
id, or Bisterhood, or friendship, or love of lovers ? 
Sitting central in the immensity of that love, He says, 
• < >me unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." It is the invitation of infinite 
power to infinite weakness, of infinite purity to infinite 
sinfulness of infinite riches to utter and abject poverty, 
M I I Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me ii 

thine h<lp." 

Win.N • i that their branches are mostly on 

tore branches to the deficient side 

bj catting the 0] kide. We cut the most barren 

and there nature, in Beeking to restore what we cut, 

it new bud- and branches. So the gardener 

puts the knife there will follow 

And blessed are they whom the 

• nly Husbandman prunes, that they may bring fcrth 

fruit, if, when II c its, i 1 ere is a bud behind the 

: i them who, being cut, have no bud to 

inched and barren from being 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 13 

It is not that the force of our love to God is so great 
that nothing can ever root it up, — it is that the love of 
God to us is so great that none of these things will ever 
move that procuring cause of good in Him. God loves 
us so that neither law, nor power, nor earthly experience, 
nor heavenly adjudications, nor any human witnesses, nor 
any accusing spirits, nor anything, shall quench, or cause 
to glow with one diminished ray, the intensity of His 
love. None of these things shall take away that love 
which led Him to give His Son to die for us, and to 
raise Him up to be our everlasting intercessor. It shall 
be to us like the sun, that carries never-ending summer 
from age to age. 



Sometimes men, with slippery logic, say that God 
employs wicked men for the furtherance of His purposes, 
and that they must carry on the great ends of life, — that 
they must be hewers of wood and drawers of water, — 
while good men, though more or less dependent upon 
such things, are not themselves to be concerned in them. 
Now, no man ever will be a better man by seclusion, or 
a worse man by engaging actively and enthusiastically in 
the right things of human life. As strangers and pil- 
grims would pass through a plague-district, not stopping, 
if they could avoid it, but hastening on, and taking care 
to touch no infected thing ; so some would pass through 
this life. But no man is appointed to pass through this 
life as if it were plague-stricken and infectious. And 
any man that undertakes to go through the world acting 
on the principle that it is a sin, on the whole, to have 
much to do with the secular avocations and duties of life, 
not only will have infinite troubles and inconsistencies in 
his own conduct, but will not understand the first letter 
" the spirit of enlightened Christianitv. 



1 i ROYAL TRUTHS. 

When young men arc beginning life, the most impor- 
tant period is that, it is .-aid. in which their habits are 
formed. This is very important; but I take it that the 
period in which a young man's ideas are formed and 
is more important still. For the ideal which 
rth to measure things by determines the nature, 
ir as you arc concerned, of everything that you meet. 
It a man goes into lite Baying, "I am determined that I 
will make everything bend to the one supreme end of 
getting rich," he i 'Men rule by which to measure 

everything. One man says, "I am determined to be 
heard from. I will live to make myself glorious." Ap- 
probativeness, or self-esteem, measures all things in his 
. Another man says, M Beauty shall be the chief 
element of my earthly enjoyment." Taste is the ideal 
by which he measures everything. 



No man who regards this life as an end can ever be 
happy in it. Men were made to be happy. Never was 
a musical-box so exquisitely arranged for the playing of 

: tunes, as the human organism is for the production 

of the music of happiness. The trouble is, we wind it up 

the wrong way. The instrument slides out of measure, 

and we play three or four tunes wrong, and mixed to- 

gether. A most discordant thing, therefore, is man, 

although exquisitely organized for happiness. We are 

lished in the wrong way. We have been learning 

how to use many things. We know how to use the stars 

b ' ■■'• ; we know how to use wood and iron better; we 

. how to use wind and steam better; we know how 

:i thousand things better; but, alas! our chief 

in that which concerns ourselves. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 15 

Auspicious is the day in which a child is made to 
accept the truth that the measures of character and con- 
duct are supernal ; that justice, love, purity, truth, hope, 
and all the other elements belonging to the higher sphere 
of truths, are the tests by which he is to go through life 
measuring what is right and wrong, high and low, good 
and bad, desirable and undesirable. For if a child is 
accustomed to measure these things by his senses, he is 
all his life long vulgarizing himself. But if he is accus- 
tomed to measure them on the spiritual scale, he is all his 
life long tending to free himself from the body, and to 
become more and more spiritual. 



A man may be outwardly successful all his life long, 
and die hollow and worthless as a puff-ball ; and a man 
may be externally defeated all his life long, and die in 
the royalty of a kingdom established within him. That 
man is a pauper who has only outward success ; and that 
man may be a prince who dies in rags, untended, and 
unknown in his physical relations to this world. And 
we ousjht to take the ideal in the beginning that a man's 
true estate of power and riches is to be in himself: not 
in his dwelling ; not in his position ; not in his external 
relations, but in his own essential character. That is the 
realm in which a man must live, if he is to live as a 
Christian man. 



The pit that is deepest, the pit that is most unexplored 
and most unfathomable, is that which is the wonder and 
glory of God's thought and hand, — our own soul. 



I can prepare ten sermons easier than I can make one 
visit to a person in distress. Such a visit of one hour is 



1G ROYAL TRUTHS. 

more exhaustive than the uninterrupted study of ten 
hoars. 



It requires a great deal of the spirit of the cross for a 
man to suffer for himself; but the evidence of the extent 
to which the nature of Christ lias penetrated into your 
heart is to be measured by the affluence of that spirit in 
you which makes it sweet to you to make any man better 
by diminishing yourself in doing it. 

I do not know where to look for such a man. I see 
him in Paul. If there ever was a man who almost for- 
got his own personality, and thought only of those whom 
lie might serve, it seems to me to have been Paul ; but 
beside him I can scarcely find another, and the nearer 
home I get the more rarely I find them. I have a bright 
ideal of what it is to use the whole of my life and powers 
for other men, or a shaking of myself out of myself ; but 
that cursed individuality still brings my thoughts and 
feelings back to myself, checks my enthusiasm, and I can- 
not pour out my life like a libation for God. That I 
feel in myself, and I therefore interpret it in you. 

How different a thing it is to be a Christian as men be- 

Christians, and to be one according to the example 

of Christ and the spirit of the apostle Paul! If you are 

to become Buch a one as Christ, if you are to be emptied 

rarself, if you are to live for others, I ask you, will 

that change be like a resurrection from the dead? 

( ), look how Belfish, how hard, how unfeeling, life is I 

See how men hate one another] See what prejudices 

them I See what ten thousand things are 

thrown in the way. even by good mm, making the wheels 

tarn -lowly and hard! See what attrition there is! See 

y \ art of the machinery of life draws hard ! 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 17 

Now, tell me, if there should come on such natures the 
royalty of love, — if there should be a change that should 
make men love as easily as violets smell sweet, — if there 
should be a change that should make a man's heart come 
out as odors do, furnishing that which men delight in, 
but not diminishing the supply, — would it not be a 
change just as great as to make a man all over again? 
And if that is so, what objection have you to saying so 
that they are born again ? I think it would not hurt 
some men to be born twenty times more ! I think we all 
need to be born again ; that there is a continual re-cre- 
ation and re-creation and re-creation, with higher con- 
ceptions and purer spiritual realizations. No man who 
looks at men as they are, and holds up before them the 
bright ideal of Christ's character, — no such man can say, 
if they receive such a symbol as that, that it is not a new 
creation. 



I have, in my house, a little sheet of paper on which 
there is a faint, pale, and not particularly skilful repre- 
sentation of a hyacinth. It is not half as beautiful as 
many other pictures I have, but I regard it as the most 
exquisite of them all. My mother painted it; and I 
never see it that I do not think that her hand rested on 
it, and that her thought was concerned in its execution. 

Now, suppose you had such a conception of God that 
you never saw a flower, a tree, a cloud, or any natural 
object, that you did not instantly think, "My Father 
made it," what a natural world would this become to 
you ! How beautiful would the earth seem to you ! 
And how would you find that nature was a revelation 
of God, speaking as plainly as His written Word ! And 
if you are alone, in solitude, without company, desolate 



18 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ID your circumstances, it is because you have not that 
inner Bense of the Divine love and care which it is your 
privilege to have, and which you ought to have. 

This is an age in which we are all run mad for phi- 
lanthropy. Everybody wants to be a philanthropist; and 
men go out to be philanthropists. So when a man goes 
down, his first inquiry is, "What shall I do?" 

A man rises and is vexed that he was not called ear- 
lier, that he was not called to a better breakfast ; that his 
commands are not obeyed by his servant, — who is for- 
ever forgetting, — and starts out on philanthropy! He 
goes to teach, perhaps, as one of the readiest things we 
know of in our time, — he goes to teach the poor, and 
Bupposes there will be a suitable conception of what a 
condescension it is in him. Tie goes, as much as to say, 
u Here, hoys, am I; and I have come clear down from 
that altitude in which I live ; take great care of me, and 
respeel and revere me. for I have come to teach you." 
Bui when these boys cuff each other, and pull each oth- 
er's hair, and kick him, are there one Sunday and away 
the next, and .-wear, and lie. and steal, and pick his pock- 
while he is instructing them, the man says, "This 
philanthropy has been greatly cried up, but I have had 
enough of it The human race is 'totally depraved,' and 
I will ht them go.* Sere Was a man who went down to 
find worshippers ; here was a man who went down to do 
i. and save himself. It is a- if a miser should go out 
to distribute charity, thinking all the while how he could 
• without losing money! And here are men who go 
out to do good, all the time counting how much they get, 
and what it COBtS them. There IS no bounty of feeling, 

no outpouring of nature, no regality of thought, saying 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 19 

"How can I give my being to make other beings richer?" 
No feeling that it is glorious to bear, and endure, and 
suffer ; and when } r ou come to bear, and endure, and suf- 
fer out of church, that is a very different thing from doing 
it in church. 



I never know how to worship until I know how to 
love ; and to love I must have something that I can put 
my arms around, — something that, touching my heart, 
shall leave not the chill of ice, but the warmth of summer. 
There must be something that will come near my heart, 
— something that I can love, — or I cannot worship ; 
and this idea of a central, inflexible, serene, passionless 
God, unmoved and unmoving, that sometimes thunders, 
and then, under certain conditions, loves in a proper man- 
ner, — this conception of the Divine nature is utterly 
freezing ; it sets me upon the Poles, and all the revolu- 
tions of the year leave me but ice and icebergs. 



You never know how much one loves until you know 
how much he is willing to endure and s iffer ; and it is 
the suffering element that measures love. And all char- 
acters that are high must, of necessity, be characters that 
shall be willing, patient, and strong to endure for others. 
It is not so much the pleasure we have in affection. To 
be able to have bright affections playing upon you and 
giving great joy to your nature, is one thing, and to hold 
your nature in the willing service of others, is another ; 
and that is the Divine idea of manhood, of the human 
character. 



A great many men are addicted to much lugubrious 
soliloquizing and complaining about this unsatisfying 



ttOYAL TROTHS. 

world ; but v. - Y in S or not depends upon 

what men try to satisfy themselves with. If a man were 

■ ;h, and try to use it as a compass, to steer 

would Bay, M How unsatisfying this watch 
la!" Y. r a Bhip by, but not to tell the time by. 

- this world for things that it was 
not meant to be used for, it is an unsatisfying world; 
but when a man uses it for the things that it was meant 
1 for,. it is a satisfying world, — it is a glorious 
world. It ifl a very good world for the purposes for 
which it was built ; and that is all anything is good for. 
A watch for time ; a compass for direction ; a plough 
for turning up the soil ; a ship for the sea; a house for 
a habitation ; an ox or a horse for labor ; sheep for wool 
and food; a loom for one thing; an anvil for another; 
silk> for { 5 for floors. 

When yon look at the globe, society, men's occupa- 
tion-, and the like, in this large view, the world is admi- 
rable. It- very rude:).--, its hard: gp, are 
ii-t of the primitive design, and are beneficial 
instrumentally. Men that love leisure never can in. 

3, who In pation. Men who 

their Bupreme idea of life in self-indulgence, cannot 

understand what God means, who makes self-exertion, in 

Bimself, in angeli • powers, in all His creatures, the test 

[f men are Beeking to be supine, to have 

men! without earning it, and God is deter- 

tirred upl is of hope and fear, 

- that they may grow and develop, 

stand Him or His adminis- 

I in tl Is woi Id are placed where I 

■ them wl velopment, by opening and 

k them. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 21 

A man may go as straight from the shop, or deck, to 
heaven, as if he kept weary watch in a cloister, or had 
shivered himself to death in a cave. It is a man dying 
with his harness on that angels love to take. I hope 
those old water-logged saints that died soaking in damp 
stone cells were taken to heaven. They had hell enough 
on earth, and it would be a pity for them to have a con- 
tinuation of it in the other world ; but I think they were 
the poorest of ail human commodities ever taken in! 

When God wanted sponges and oysters. He made 
them, and put one on a rock, and the other in the mud. 
When He made man. He did not make him to be a 
sponge or an oyster ; He made him with feet, and hands, 
and head, and heart, and vital blood, and a place to use 
them, and said to him, *• Go, work ! " And the man that 
does not go and work is not a man in the end : while the 
man that puts the vigor and enthusiasm which God in- 
spires into the life that now is, becomes a man indeed. 



The Apostle is setting up a peerage in the eleventh 
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He collects from 
the past the memorable names of Jewish worthies, and 
gives them the glory of the great title, Faith. The high- 
est Order that was ever instituted on the earth, is the Or- 
der of Faith. This chapter is the portrait-gallery of the 
Book ; and from it look down upon us the memorable 
names of remote antiquity. 



It is not the first part of the voyage, but the last part, 
that tells whether it is a successful voyage or not. The 
ship De Wirt Clinton lies on the coast just below here, 
disabled. The prosperity of twenty-six days she lost 
on the twenty-seventh, when coming into the harbor. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 



However prosperous your life may be here, if you stick 
(in the Bhore, and do not come in on the other life, you 
are a wreck I You must take care of the last part of the 
voyage, or you take care of nothing at all! 



EVERT man is horn with aspiration. It does not de- 
velop in every man. Neither do half the buds in trees 
hi ssom. But they are there. And there is aspiration 
in every man, whether you suspect it or not, and though 
it may not blossom. Aspiration means tendril, twining, 
or anything else by which one vines upward, holding on 
by the way to whatever will support him. Some plants 
take hold by winding around, some by little roots, some 
by tendrils, some by hooks, and some by leaves that catch 
like anchors. But these things take hold not for the sake 
of staying where they take hold, but only that they T may 
climb higher. And so it is with men. We clasp things 
above us by every part of our nature, one after another, 
not for the sake of remaining where we take hold, but 
that we may go higher. In other words, when in the 
ordinary experience of life we gain satisfaction, we do it 
almost only by Feeding on each other. When we attain 
development, we do that in the same way. The soul 
on soul, whether for satisfaction or development. 



Win v I ask men to come and talk with me on the 
subject of religion, and tell them that whether they do or 

not may decide their destiny, they sometimes wag their 
head, and say, tt Do you suppose God governs the world 
upon Mich a mean and narrow plan that a man's destiny 

depends upon whether he does or does not go and talk 
with another man ?" I know that when a train is going 
at the rate of Bixty miles an hour, it depends upon wheth- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 23 

er the switch is one tenth-part of an inch one way or an- 
other, whether the passengers are swept into destruction, 
or run along smoothly, without knowing that they are in 
danger. It is at these critical points that small things 
become omnipotent. When you have put on one side of 
a scale one hundred pounds, and on the other ninety- 
nine pounds and ninety-nine hundredths of a pound, one 
hundredth of a pound is of as much importance as all the 
rest of the weight. It is when you come to'these points, 
where but the least things are required to turn the scale, 
that such things become momentous. 



I think that when Christ said, "The last shall be 
first," He thought of those persons, of whom there are 
many, that are never known outside of their own neigh- 
borhood, or their own home ; who bear sickness in soli- 
tude ; who are weary w T ith care from one year's end to 
another ; whose life is one continued series of disappoint- 
ments ; who have not one single external exponent of 
what is called success ; but who have wrought mightily 
within their children, and made them witnesses before 
God with such faith, and hope, and purity, and exhilarat- 
ing patience, that as He looks on them, He sees that 
their hearts are more bright than the stars themselves. 
And at the resurrection they shall be first, inasmuch as 
they are last here. They shall be kings and priests. 
When we get to heaven we shall not know those that are 
first. They will be persons that here were hidden ones, 
but that carried themselves with supreme fidelity toward 
God. 



The moment a man has the vast sweep of the eternal 
world for his depository, how will his troubles be allevi- 



24 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ated or destroyed, by his looking at every part of his life 
as relative to that ! 

Suppose I am disappointed ! My first feeling is one of 
annoyance, perhaps; bat my second feeling is, "Why, lie 

that makes the ground fertile by frosts, is making my life 
fertile by disappointments. He sends them upon me that 
I may be broken up, disintegrated, comminuted, rendered 
pulverulent, and thus be in a state to promote better 
growths." When a man finds that he is tasked enor- 
mously with the cares of life, God sends some angel to 
whisper to him, " This is the way you are to be made 
strong and noble." Even the beggar finds comfort in this 
voice of encouragement, and says, " I thought it was a 
beggar's pack that I was struggling under, but God tells 
me it is armor ; and I am strong enough to carry it." 
Let us apply this interpretation to our burdens, that if 
may change their nature, and make them easy for us ta 
bear. 



Do you remember what, in His last interview with 
IIi< disciples, in that prolonged love-feast which preceded 
His crucifixion, — do you remember what, when the cloud 
mii Him, when that time which had been deferred, 
and of which lie -aid again and again, " It is not yet," 
at last came, and the great eclipse began to show itself, 
and the shadow was falling, and lie was uttering His last 
words to them, and preparing them with all zeal to be 

ered like sheep without a shepherd, — do you remem- 
l er what in that hour was the state of the mind of Christ? 
He Bays, M My p< ace I give unto you." [n that hour of 
tempest, and darkness, and coming anguish, while there 

agitation everywhere else, in the heart of Christ 
then- was peace, — peace enough not only for His own 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 25 

wants, but for the wants of His dear disciples. And 
when you think of Christ as a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief, think also that He gave an exempli- 
fication of the power of the soul to overcome these things. 
When you forget to eat or drink because you are so busy ; 
when your child is sick, and you forget to take your ac- 
customed food; when public affairs are at a high key, 
and you are enthusiastically devoted to the interests of 
the commonwealth, and you forget to give the body its 
proper nourishment, and wonder what ails you, and think, 
" Why, for twenty -four hours I have scarcely tasted food," 
remember that our Saviour was so absorbed in the follow- 
ing out of the great cause of God in this world, that He 
forgot to be hungry, that He forgot to be tired, and that 
He forgot to sleep. 

The family, — the school, — the church, — regulated 
aiid virtuous civil society, — wholesome and normal oc- 
cupation, which increases physical comforts, — all these 
make the number of children reared to high moral char- 
acter greater, and the training of such children easier. 
Therefore, the very way to train our children for heaven 
is to surround them by such conditions of human society 
as will have a powerful, though indirect, influence upon 
their moral amelioration and upbuilding. I would rather 
undertake to bring up my child to virtue and morality 
and piety in the city, bad a3 it is, than on the desert of 
Sahara, or on a flat rock where there was nothing but 
him, me, and the rock. You could bring up a toadstool 
there, but not a man. A man must have something to 
feed on, something to think about, something to wake him 
up, something to inspire him. What kind of a battle 
could a man fight alone? A man to fight, and to be 
2 



20 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

a victorious, courageous man, must have something to 
fight 



I WOULD not, for all the world, he made so of stone 
that I could not weep with those that weep, and that I 
could not sympathize with those who feel that war is a 
dreadful calamity, and that war among brethren is an 
awful thing. 1 know it is. I have probed it for years 
in imagination. It has been like a cloud of darkness 
before my mind. For twenty years God's messengers 
have been telling us that this thing would come* if evils 
that were tending toward it were not put down. And 
when we have been disposed to hold back our hand from 
duty, and to compromise with wrong, they have said that 
the mischief must inevitably roll on and over, collecting 
Btrength as it rolled, till it should end in gulfs of distress 
and abysses of misery. We would not heed their warn- 
ing ; we chose to take the way of present peace, rather 
than listen to and act upon their prophecies. And now 
that the results which they predicted have come, let us 
not make the mistake again of measuring by the way we 
feel, [f we love our children more than the cause of 
God, we arc not worthy to follow Christ. If we love 
an ignoble living more than a glorious living, we are not 
worthy to follow Christ If we look upon the face of 
v, it and Bee nothing but its physical terrors, if we do 
through thai and see what is the moral reason, 
and wh.it are the moral triumph and the moral glory of 
the whole cause, we are not worthy to follow the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 



It is how much of the invisible we can bring into thii 
* The rebellion in the Southern Stal 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 27 

life that makes this life rich and valuable. I will tell 
you a secret of gardening. Turnips, and other crops that 
have long roots, and depend mostly for their nourishment 
on the soil, exhaust the soil ; while those crops that have 
broad leaves, and take the greater portion of their nour- 
ishment from the air, organizing it, and turning it into 
the soil, enrich the soil. Now, let me tell you that that 
which makes this life rich is that broad-leaved experience 
which derives its support from the air of the future world. 
And the man that is most impalpable and invisible in this 
life has most of this life itself. 



There is a sense in which a man, looking on the pres- 
ent in the light of the future, and taking his whole being 
into the account, may be contented with his lot ; that is 
Christian contentment. What philosophers want is that 
a man shall be contented in just the state he is in. But 
I tell you, if a man has come to that point where he is 
content, he ought to be put into his coffin ; for a content- 
ed live man is a sham ! If a man has come to that state 
in which he says, " I do not want to know any more, or 
do any more, or be any more," he is in a state in which 
he ought to be changed into a mummv ! Of all hideoii3 
things mummies are the most hideous ; and of mummies, 
those are the most hideous that are running about the 
streets and talking ! I would rather see the old Egypt- 
ian cerements than those men that are content with what 
they are, and do not want to be any more. 



The world is a grindstone, and races are axes which 
are to get their cutting edges by being ground on it! 
The very object for which God thinks it worth while to 
turn and roll this round globe is that, by its very attrition 



28 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and working, men may be made men in every sense of 
the term. 



God puts the oak in the forest, aid the pine on its 
sand or ruck, and .-ays to men. "There are your houses: 
go hew, Baw, frame, build, make." God builds trees: men 
must build the house. God supplies timber: men must 

Struct the ship. God buries iron: men must dig for 
it. and smelt it, and fashion it. What is useful for the 
body, and, still more, what is useful for the mind, is to be 
had only by exertion, — exertion that will work man 
more than iron is wrought, that will shape man more than 
timber is shaped. Clay and rock are given us: not brick 
and squared stone. God gives us no raiment : he give- W 
flax and sheep. If we would have coats on our backs, 
we must take them off our flocks, and spin them and 
weave them. If we would have anything of benefit, we 
must earn it, and, earning it, must become shrewd, inven- 
tive, ingenious, active, enterprising. 



Tin: doubts and fears which prevail in Christian minds 
■ — whether their Bins, their infirmities, and their foibles 
do not exhaust God's patience — are utterly unreason- 
able the moment we look at God. 

A child has his little box that he keeps his money in. 
He has kept it unbroken — marvel of a child that he 
is — for a who].' year! From time to time he drops in 
rattling pennies and halfpennies, — contribution coin, — 
until by and by b< inception that he must have a 

ISlire; and. unsealing it and counting it. he linds 
that he has really a whole pound! And now he begins 
to have -onic thought of what he shall do with tin- i 
ore. lie at first think- he will buy a library with it ; 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 29 

but Lefore he knows it he has run over in his mind 
enough books to come to ten pounds. Then he thinks 
he will lay it out for playthings ; but, oh, at every step 
he finds that the thing he would buy greatly outmeasures 
his means ; until at last he feels, " I can buy nothing ; I 
have only a pound, and that will pay for none of the 
things that I desire." But the child's father is a million- 
naire, and owns houses, and lands, and ships, and banks ; 
he is wretchedly rich ! and the child knows it. Instead, 
then, of saying, " What can I do with my pound ? " he 
might well say, " What need I that I may not have in 
my father's wealth ? What need I, of food, or raiment, 
or books, or proper pleasure, that it is not over and over 
again in the power of my father to give me ? " 

Now, that poor little child's pound and his want bear 
about the same relation to his father's wealth, that our 
power and our want bear to the glory and richness of 
God's power. What is a man's power ? He has power to 
resolve. And what is the power of resolution ? It is the 
power of a bubble which reflects for one instant the glory 
of heaven, and then is broken and gone. Our resolutions 
are good for a second, and then they are forgotten. What 
are men's throes and struggles against inward passions 
and outward temptations ? They are as nothing. We are 
swept before the evil influences which come upon us in 
this world, as chaff before the summer's storm. We are 
routed and driven as miserable, cowardly militia before 
courageous soldiers. 



The prouder a man is, the more he thinks he deserves ; 
and the more he thinks he deserves, the less he really 
does deserve. A proud man, — the whole world is not 
big enough to serve him. The little he gets he looks 



80 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

upon with contempt because it is little. The much that 
he dues Dot get he regards as evidence of the marvellous 
things in human life. lie walks a perpet- 
ual self-adulator, • ting until experience has taught 

him not I and then he goes forever murmuring 

at what he looks upon as partiality in God's dealings with 
men. Such men are like old hulks that make no voyages, 
and leak at every seam. They are diseased with pride. 
They have the craving appetite of dyspepsia in their dis- 
position. 

There are emergencies of relig xperience in 

which the soul can do nothing but simply abandon itself, 

and lay hold on God. I suppose that every person who 

I work of grace that is deeply rooted in him, remem- 

- lays and hours at some periods of life (they are more 
marked than at others) in which there is nothing that 
it can rest upon. There is just this one thing. — help". 

- the most otter hanging upon the neck of Btrength 
the most august, — a sense of the most profound un- 

98 -landing before the most profound worth 

and purity and excellence. As the stars that rise in the 

_ inst the light, never rise so brightly nor 

last so long as I - - evening that rise from 

darkness, and that grow bright by darkness, so out of our 

. though there rise up bright oon< 

there are none that compare for one single 

jrhts of God when the soul feels 

tlness. There is 

a ; of mercy, and wonder in the gra- 

. when we feel that ? rfbl. In 

, when, 

* are pervaded with of our nnworthiness, there 



RuYAL TRUTHS. 31 

is but one thing for us to do. to hope in Jesus Christ, and 
hope simply, or else despair. Not that you understand 
He atones and pardons ; not that you can see what 
is the relation of Christ to you. There is no philosophy 
about it ; there is nothing but this simple instinct of hope ; 
we clasp, we hold on to Christ, and say. ,; Thou art my 
anchor ; Thou art my safeguard and my surety/' It is a 
wg, and not a thought. 

Men conclude that one universal and absolute will 
must, of course, bar the freedom of all others. That de- 
ls not so much upon the fact of the supremacy, as 
upon the mind. What God's wull is, has much to do with 
what is the freedom or the servitude of man's will. For 
if our freedom is a part of our nature and heritage ; if it 
is that for which God thought it worth while to make man ; 
if it is that that gives value to man, being made; if it is 
that through which God means to illustrate His own glory 
in ages yet to come : if it is that that separates between 
man and the lower creations of God in this world; then 
it is that part of us which is immutable, and the Divine 
will will insure, and not subvert, the liberty of ours. 
God made us to be free, that in a lower sphere we might 
be like Himself. 



Afiek that hoary old despot. Ahab, had revelled in 
iniquity knee-deep, — yes, from his loin3 to his neck; 
after he had slain the prophets and ramped up and down 
like the devil, and walked* about like a lion, one poor 
starveling prophet came to him, when he says to him, 
" Ah ! art thou he that troubleth Israel ? M This man 
had carried devastation and revolution through the land, 
and destroyed its faithful prophets, and the moment he 



C2 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

comes in Bight of a surviving one he says, " Ah ! you 
are troubling Israel ! " It is the same game over and 
over. For the nature of despotism is the same every- 
where, in every age, and under all circumstances ; and 
what you read in the Book you can read on the planta- 
tion, in the halls of Congress, and in the speeches and 
conduct of men in your own day. 



The public sentiment of a community, instead of being 
adverse to truth and right, is mighty in helping men to 
do difficult things. There are periods of the world when 
heroic traits are almost drugs. There are times when 
the whole public mind is inspired in certain directions. 
There are periods when men die easy, and hundreds and 
thousands cast away their lives almost at the beck of one 
man, who is leading them on to great deeds. There are 
times when generosity and disinterested benevolence are 
abundant, and it seems as though there were a mania 
among men to do noble things. Such periods show the 
power of public sentiment ; and it also shows how impor- 
tant it is to bring as many great truths and principles as 
possible within the approval of public sentiment, in order 
that they may be easily adopted and acted upon by men. 
If you create a moral public sentiment, then you have a 
power by which to enforce moral lessons. There is a 
despotic element in public sentiment, which consists in 
the overact inn of power. Everywhere power is prima- 
rily despotic, and therefore it is so in public sentiment. 



HERE is B man that Stands very high, and is much 

ed. He knows, that if he makes his mark in the 

community men will praise him ; and he takes care to do 

it, ;ni 1 he is praised accordingly, lie builds him a fine 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 33 

dwelling, and he is praised for that; he lays him out mag- 
nificent grounds, and he is praised for that ; he exerts a 
great power, and though it be an unregulated and immor- 
al pow r er, he is praised for that ; he surrounds himself 
with wealth, and all the various other things that are 
most esteemed in this world, and men point him out, and 
nudge each other, and say, u There is the most prosper- 
ous man in the whole town." He is a walking poor- 
house ; he is a walking hospital ; he is a walking 
lazar-house ; he is rotten in conscience, and foul in 
passion ; he lives for brick and mortar, and that which 
they contain ; he lives for the lowest forms of power, and 
all of them run centrewise, for his heart is like a tunnel, 
flaring out toward this world, and growing small toward 
the other, and ingurgitating, ingurgitating, all his life 
long. Men say that he is prosperous ; but bones, flesh, 
and skin are all there is of him. His conscience is dead; 
his taste has never been developed ; all his sweeter affec- 
tions are overlaid and cast down. As statues and pictures 
in overwhelmed cities of the Orient have for a thou- 
sand years lain covered with the soil, so the aspirations 
that early manifested themselves in many a man have 
long been covered by the soil of business and pleasure. 
Men say he is prosperous, and they pass by his grounds 
with a certain sense of awe. To them there is a kind of 
mysterious grandeur about his house ; and they know not 
but he is wellnigh omnipotent. He is called the first. 

By and by, when he goes to judgment, he will carry 
up everything that belongs to his spiritual excellence, 
and leave here everything that belongs to his temporal 
excellence. He will leave here his grounds ; his house, 
its furniture, and pictures, and books ; his stable and 
horses ; his body, its passions, and tastes ; all earthly 

2* C 



84 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

loro, everything tnat belongs to the flesh. He will carry 
with him nothing but his generosity, — and you could 
take that on the point of a needle; his faith, — and there 
is 1 nit a speck of that ; and all the heroic elements of his 
nature, — and there is not so much as a pinch of them. 



A MAN that puts himself on the ground of mora] prin- 
ciple, if the whole world he against him, is mightier than 
all of them ; for the orh of time becomes such a man's 
shield, and every step, every year, brings him nearer to 
the hand of Omnipotence. If a man takes ground for 
truth, and justice, and rectitude, and piety, and fights 
well, there can be no question as to the result. I would 
that I could inspire any man to do right with courage, 
therefore, by making him feel that right is itself a host. 
Never be afraid of being in minorities, so that minorities 
are based upon principles. 



We are far down in the years of time, when God 
works revolutions against appetite, and lust, ami avarice, 
against power without love, against every mere material 
interest of men, without the employment of physical 
force. And when such a revolution as this takes place, 
and that by mere mind-power, it is time to begin to look, 
not for the star, but for sunrise. AVe are near to it. 



It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that 
turns gristle to mu8cle ; it i> defeat that makes men in- 
vincible ; it is defeat that has made those heroic natures 
that are now in the ascendency, and that has given the 
I law of liberty for the bitter law of oppression. Dc 
not, therefore, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near 

victory as when yen are defeated in a good cause. For 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 35 

then they had Christ when they kissed Him ; but that 
kiss, so foul on Judas's lips, on the face of Christ shone 
like a jewel. Yes, then they had Him, when they hauled 
Him before the Sanhedrim midnight ; but it was like 
a triumphal march. Then, when they led Him toward 
Calvary, they had Him. And then, when to the music 
of hammers they lifted Him up, and He hung suspended 
and groaning, and with implorations of unutterable agony 
died, and the heavens were dark, their victory was accom- 
plished, and so was their everlasting defeat ; for not till 
He died could He live, or we in Him. It was slaying 
Him that gave Him power. And so of everything that 
has the nature of Christ in it, — every truth, every cause, 
every sanctity, every noble thing. Slay it if you can, 
and, like the gashes of Milton's angels, its wounds will 
close by the healing, heavenly virtues of its own nature, 
and it will stand forth with even greater power than 
before. 



There are many patriarchs of the pool. Have you 
never seen these patriarchal croakers, of a summer even- 
ing, on the borders of some inland lake ? Have you 
never heard their croakings all through the night ? 
There is many and many a man who sits squat on the 
edge of his party pool, croaking — croaking — croaking ; 
and you would think, if you did not know what the sound 
was. that all the spirits of the lower regions, weird and 
mischievous, were in the air. And yet, when you go and 
explore, what is the noise ? It is a frog ! — nothing 
more ! 



When you are in a cause, see if, when you sound it, it 
touches the bottom, — God Almighty ; and if you find a 



3(3 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

truth a> everlasting as God, stand by it, talk of it; and 
if nun would muzzle you, talk on. Talk living, and die 
talking; and make: other men talk. There is no harm 
that can come from talking of things that ought not to be 
harmed. The only risk is in reticence, — in guilty si- 
lence. 



COULD you not point out some in your church that are 
forever under a cloud because they are not appreciated, 
— because their worth is not understood, — because their 
value has never been justly estimated, — because, being 
weighed in the great scale of society, they are always too 
light ? You may be sure that nature, and society, and 
universal experience, do not lie about these men. Where 
i- their labor? Where is the exponent of their industry? 
Where is their bountiful beneficence? What tears have 
they wiped away? What houses have they builded for 
the pool? What contribution have they made to the 
public weal? What noble example have they set before 
the world? What explorations have they made upon the 
or upon the land? What useful thing have they 
invented? Where are the evidences of their desert? 
They are barren and granited from head to foot, so that 
ev< n moss w ill not grow on them. 



A ma\ Bhould be lenient with everybody but himself. 
A man should bo rigid with himself, and nobody else. 
I,« i ;i in. n Bay in the beginning of his life, "My life de- 
pends upon inc."' There is a divine, overruling Provi- 
<•, but it i- a Providence which favors those that 
favor th< by taxation, responsibility, care, wise 

exertion. 



ROYAL TRUTHS, £7 

The relation of health to a man's disposition, and so 
to his capacity of conferring and receiving happiness, is 
worthy of serious study. The happiness of our life does 
not consist in a few great sources. It springs from in- 
numerable minute and constantly-recurring causes : and, 
more than from all other things together, it springs from 
the disposition of men among themselves, and toward 
each other. The morbid states of health, the irritable- 
ness of disposition arising from unstrung nerves, the im- 
patience, the crossness, the fault-finding of men, who. full 
of morbid influences, are unhappy themselves, and throw 
the cloud of their troubles like a dark shadow upon oth- 
ri 5. teach us what eminent duty there is in health. 



Jod made the human body, and it is by far the most 
exquisite and wonderful organization which has come to 
us from the Divine hand. It is a study for one's whole 
life. If an undevout astronomer is mad, an undevout 
physiologist is yet madder. The stomach, that prepares 
the body s support : the vessels, that distribute the sup- 
ply ; the arteries, that take up the food, and send it 
round ; the lungs, that aerate the all-nourishing blood ; 
that muscle-engine which, without fireman or engineer, 
stands night and day pumping and driving a wholesome 
stream with vital irrigation through all the system; the 
nervous system, that unites and harmonizes the whole 
band of organs ; the brain, that dwells in the dome high 
above all, like a true royalty ; — these, with their various 
and wonderful functions, are not to be lightly spoken of, 
or irreverentlv held. 



Let me say to every one that is beginning life. Do not 
with exaggerated ideas of your own worth, Do 



38 ROYAL Till' Til*. 

not feel that you without battle ought to be a victor, and 
walk from the beginning with those laurels about your 
bead which are to be twined there, it' at all. only at the 
end of the campaign. Do not mistake your own turbu- 
lent pride. !)«» not mi-take your own false-interpreting, 
lying vanity. Do not begin your life feeling that such a 
fine fellow as you are, — one so spruce, so handsome, bo 
well-descended, so accomplished in various way-. — de- 
serves a high place. Do not flatter yourself that life owes 
you any more than it owe- anybody else. It owes you, in 
common with all others, just as much as, climbing, you 
can bring down. It owes you a chance to be something. 
It will give you that, and nothing more. It is better for 
every man to begin with this understanding: — I have a 
chance to carve out my own way. That is all I want. 
Having that I will take the consequences. 



Externally it might be difficult to judge between two 
men equally prosperous, and living surrounded by refine- 
ment- and wealth, one of whom held this world first and 
predominant, and the other of whom held it second and 
subordinate. There is Buch a thing as a man'- using the 
things of this world consciously, as in the sight of God, for 
il instrumentalities: there is such a thing, though 
nineteen out of twenty may not do it that pretend to. 
There is such a thing as a man's being a monarch, and 

lemocrat, — not in a ha-!' Bense of that term, 
but in a high, Christian sense of it. There is Buch a thing 
:i- a man's being an unpen r, and sitting Bole judge among 
men, an I ■•• the lowest and least among 

them, so far a- selfish aggrandizement is concerned. And 
though ninety-nine out of every hundred monarehs art; 

where there are example- like David, like 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 39 

Alfred, and like the reigning sovereign of England, the 
fact that so many counterfeits have existed is no ground 
for the presumption that they are not what they seem to 
be. And where you see professors of religion that gather 
their wealth from all quarters of the globe, that pile up 
the pyramid of their joys mountain high, that crown their 
days with ten thousand luxuries, though you show that 
ninety-nine out of every hundred of them are miserable 
self-seekers, and gild these things with the pretence of 
holding them for good, that is not ground for the presump- 
tion that the other hundredth, being called to be rich, and 
learned, and refined, and lovers and accumulators of art, 
have not taken their possessions and consecrated them to 
the service of their fellow-men. How many men have 
consecrated their learning, their power, their outward 
prosperity, all redolent and perfumed with the spirit of 
pure love, to the good of their fellow-men. And what if 
there are multitudes that pretend to do the same thing 
who are selfish, grasping, worldly men, that does not alter 
the fact that there are these men who, having a great deal 
of this world, hold it subject to God's requisitions, and 
administer it according; to the highest intents of Chris- 
tianity. 

Do not suppose that your life is to be in external good 
alone. When God pays you, he pays you not altogether 
in bills, or silver, or gold; but partly in bills, partly in 
silver, partly in gold ; that is, He pays you in external 
good ; He pays you in joys and comforts ; He pays you 
in social virtues, and sweet content therein ; He pays you 
in the solace of noble thoughts ; He pays you in the re- 
muneration of a manly conscience ; He pays you in hope 
and good cheer; He pays you in promises that all your 



40 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

orders Bhall be cashed when they arc presented in the ex- 
chequer above. The life that now is, is but little com 
pared with the life that is to come. The things that are 
in a man are better than all the robes that can be pu» 
upon 1 i i in. The paying of the future world will far tran 
I the paying of this world. Eternity will be the end 
of the paying, and with it will come a lull fruition. 



THERE is many and many a man that, by the help of 
the Bible and the saddle, has gone to heaven with com- 
parative ease, who would not have gone there very easily 
by the help of cither alone. 



I dread nothing more than to hear young men saying, 
"I am going to the city." If they ask me, as they often 
do wheai I am travelling about the country, what chances 
there are for a lawyer in the city, I say, u Just the chance 
that a fly has on a spider's web; go down and be eaten 
up ! n If they ask me what chances there are for a me- 
chanic in the city, I say, " Good ! good ! there Death 
carries on a wholesale and retail busine-s ! The me- 
chanic art flourishes finely! Coffin-making i- admira- 
ble ! Men are dying ten times as fast as anywhere 
else!" If a man's bones are male of Hint, if his muscles 
are male of leather; if he can work sixteen or eighteen 
bonis a day and not wink, ami then sleep scarcely wink- 
ing, — if, in other words, he, is built for mere toughness, 
then he can <_ r <> into the city, and go through the ordeal 
which business men and | Qal men are obliged to 

trough who BUCCeed. The conditions of city life may 
be made healthy, bo far as th« i physical constitution is 
concerned; but there is connected with the business of 
the city bo much c unpetition, bo much rivalry, so much 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 41 

necessity for industry, that I think it is a perpetual, 
chronic, wholesale violation of natural law. There are 
ten men that can succeed in the country, where there is 
one that can succeed in the city. 



In my own experience, the cases that I have most 
despaired of among those who have come to me for spirit- 
ual help, have been persons that were nervinely sick. I 
could do them no good, because I could not reach the 
conditions of their body. If a person will drink green 
tea, which is like the quintessence of a thousand needle- 
points in its effects on a man's nerves, what is the use of 
his coming to me with complaints about blue devils ? 
They are not blue devils ; they are green devils ! If a 
man gorges and oppresses his stomach, and so overlays 
the keys of life, — for the keys of life are located in thb 
stomach, as the keys of the piano and the organ are lo* 
cated in their appropriate places in those instruments, — ■ 
and he comes to me for deliverance from temptations, or 
for the removal of obscurities that stand between his soul 
and God, unless I can have control of that man's habits 
of eating, what can I do for him ? 



Merchants, business men, lawyers, ministers, all sorts 
of toiling and laboring men, have, in the first place, too 
little relaxation. We are like a violin, going from one 
concert to another, all day long, without once being un- 
strung. We are forever at concert pitch. It is a fact 
growing out of city life, that the intensity of our business 
takes away our relaxation and enjoyment. It takes the 
health out of the little relaxation and enjoyment which 
we have. Our very amusements are grim. Men go to 
amusements on purpose ; and it i3 only another way of 



42 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

king business. They mechanically and oonsci< 
amuse tl. selves, ' - _ into amusement nat- 

urally and without ti. _ I Laughing, singing, el 

ancy, — I L the vari - 3 by which 

men rest themselves without volition, are almost unkn 

world too Bober. We art- a world too 
unlai _ _. W »mp enough with our children. 

We arc not children enough ourseli 



I think you might dispense with half jour doctors, if 
would only consult Doctor Sun more, and be I 
under the treatment of the hydropathic do. : 

the clou 

There are a great many men that do not count that 
worth anything in this world which has not its representa- 
s >me physical good. They go through the r 
library, and Bay, " What value is there in all tl 
V i cannot eat them, nor drink them, nor i 

:' no 
I .-iv- 

3, • ■ < I what conceivable 
and expensive things b 
<■ men who, it* you take them into your flu 

• I call them ? Cin- 

you do with them ? 
they _ a them an m?" 

I them {• 
■ N . ' •• I' with the 

•• I I I. »k at them 1 And is that all 

I for, — to be looked at? I think it' I was 
in your place I would spend mj 'besides 

ra just to look at ! " It' they would feed the 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 43 

mouth or fill the pocket, they would tempt such men. 
If, together with their elements of taste and beauty, they 
were of some practical benefit, they would value them as 
worth something. But since they do not minister to the 
gross senses in any way, they look upon them as value- 
less. External good is the only rule that they measure 
by. The fact that these things give comfort to the affec- 
tions, feed the imagination, inspire the better feelings, 
and fill the higher ranges of a man's life, is nothing to 
them, for they are accustomed to measure everything by 
how it tastes, or how it feels in the pocket. 



There are two ways in which religion works ; the 
vertical way, and the horizontal way. First, we are to 
carry out religion as tidings of good to all the world. 
Then, in all the world, we are to intensify it, and carry 
its control more and more into every living relation of 
society. And our work is not done until the world is 
Christ's. It is not enough for us that we take care of 
our own children : our neighbor's children, also, are ours, 
in some sense. It is not enough that we take care of our 
own neighborhood : all that are confederated in church 
connection with us have a claim upon our interest, and 
we have reciprocal duties toward them. Nor is it enough 
that our own church are objects of interest and duty to 
us : the town or city, the county that holds the town or 
city, the nation that encloses the county, — all these, 
also, belong to us. There is a brotherhood that carries 
us out to every human being. Nor are they alone ours 
that belong to our nation : all that belong to every na- 
tion on the globe, — they are ours. Though they may 
not know us, and though we may not be able even to 
pronounce the name by which they are known, to them 



44 YAL TRUTHS. 

_~ the influence of Christianity, and they are I 

bound : ire of the 

W< are bound to include in our - 

dons, all that God thinks of 
when He looks nth. 



T itt you on y ' '-in of our 

time. And do you think that I am about to< 
tin* scepl H - Voltai 

Bolii a Hume, — that \\ 3 

away with their as s, I is buried? The _ scepti- 
cisms of our time are, — market scepticism, politic 
ticism, and religi 3 s ticism. Men who feel that it 
would be wicked t » sacrifice gn at pecuniary int< : sts I r 
the sake of principle: men who think it would be a 
trinp! ing of Providence to refuse profitable busi as c 
ulations, to leave profitable situations, or to refuse divi- 
dend- of evil ; men whose consciences will not permit 
them, as the n . ick- 

: men who stand in the market and feel that they 
aright I at wins, — these men 

infidels. You need ool t * • 1 1 me that they believe in the 
Bibl< e in the Bible ' lieve in I 

— rtfl that have no birds in them. '1 
1 fible, — a Bible of tl 
it, whir! a man, u - 

i do your integrity." 



Whi lored woman Katy, who earned 

own livelihood; who sold cakes from day to day; 
n ho in h«-r li of the | 

; them trad--, and bound them out in 

self; who 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 45 

lived on the abundance of her poverty, — when she died 
out of her sphere nobody thought to ask, " What has be- 
come of her?" She was buried, perhaps, so obscurely, 
that no person could say, " I am sure here is where her 
old rattle-bones lie." But there went up heavenward a 
radiant procession, amidst an outburst of song, heralding 
the approach of some bold conqueror, crownless and scep- 
treless. It was the resurrected spirit of this servant of 
God. She lived at the bottom here, but there she lives 
in eternal fame. At last she broke into her crown of 
light, and ascended her throne, and took her sceptre. 

Thou that art doing noble things and asking no praise ; 
thou that art living to do good because it is sweet to do 
good, and be like Christ, and bear His cross, and walk 
with Him in sorrow, go up, thy Christ waits for thee. 
And come down, thou hoary-head of power that on earth 
art despoiling God's fair creation as food for thy lowest 
appetites, and living in selfishness for thyself alone ; there 
is no road between thee and God that does not break 
short on the gulf between earth and heaven. The last 
shall be first, and the first shall be last. 

Seek for glory, but be careful what kind of glory you 
seek. Work for fame, but look out that you work for the 
fame that addresses itself to the top of the brain, instead 
of that which addresses itself to the bottom. 



Suppose I should urge a man to live an honest life, and 
he should say, " I am going to set apart from my daily du- 
ties an hour in which to be honest." Many persons think 
of piety in the same way that we might suppose such a 
man would think of honesty. They regard it as some- 
thing separated from ordinary life, and to be attended to 
at intervals. They have an idea that it is something 



46 ROYAL truths. 

which is lived particularly in the closet. Now it is prop- 
er that there should be special hours Bet apart for devo- 
tion ; but, after all, a life of piety, like a life of patriotism, 
or a life of honesty, is connected with, and a part of, com- 
mon lite. 



I NEVEB pass a man that i- unshapen, I never pass a 
man that is infirm, I never pa-- a man to whom the body 
is literally a burden, that I do not think within myself, 
u How Bweel dying must be to such a one! How gladly 
must a man lay aside such a bondage of trouble ! " Mean- 
while, if it answers the end that God meant it should, if 
by its pain and circumspection, by its very hindrances, it 
works in us patience, and relinquishment of vain things, 
and a seeking of noble ones, the most dwarfed body serves 
a better purpose than the most comely one. 



I BELIEVE in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Gh« ifit, 
as three distinct Persons; but I believe that above our 
knowledge there is a point of coincidence and unity be- 
tween them. What it is I do not know. That is the un- 
tied part. The revealed part is that the Divine na- 
ture Btanda forth to us a- separate, individual Father, — 
separate, individual Son, — and Beparate, individual Spir- 
it ; and that in the vast recess of the being of God, which 
transcends our knowledge, there is a coming together of 
the three. 

Y' are the light of the world. We are the examples, 
the leaders, the models, the ideals of the world. In other 
word-, those things that men have been accustomed to Bay 
do d j t'> the church, are the very things that do 

belong to it. I hold that the Btigma which is thrown up- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 47 

on churches and Christians of advocating isms, of being 
ismatical. although it is meant to pierce, is a part of that 
crown of thorns which it is their glory to wear. And that 
church which is never stigmatized as having an ism, is by 
the mind of God stigmatized as coming short of its duty, 
and failing to be, as it was meant to be, the light of the 
world. For the business of the church is not to represent 
the average advancement of the community, but to discern 
clearer light, and higher ideals, and nobler things, and to 
insist upon lifting up human conduct in the individual, 
and in carrying the community up along the line of ad- 
mirableness, and toward more glorious achievements. 
And a church that is alive, a church that has a teaching 
communicancy, a church whose members are aspiring to 
nobler conduct, will be a disturbing church ; it will be 
continually espousing unpopular causes ; it will be all the 
time going aside from the preaching of the Gospel ; it will 
be forever agitating the elements of society ; it will be al- 
ways unsettling men, and will never give them any rest. 
We are to have no rest till we take it in heaven. God 
meant that there should be no rest in this world, except 
so far as contentment, as against envy, and jealousy, and 
fretting, and dissension, may be called rest. Aspiration 
is to be the trait of every Christian body ; and the func- 
tion of every church of Christ is to stimulate those in the 
community in which they dwell, so that there shall be a 
holy ambition burning for higher things, nobler develop- 
ments, and a purer life. Everywhere it is the business 
of the Christian Church to search the Word of God ; and, 
by prayer and the interpretations of Divine truth, find out 
things admirable and glorious ; and then bear witness, by 
precept and example, in respect to those things, that life 
may be augmenting, and that the world may be growing 



48 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

toward the measure of the stature of the fulness of perfect 
things in Christ Jesus. 



Obedience never brings a man nearer to a law. Oho- 
dience will bring a man nearer to a rule, but obedience 

will not bring a man nearer to his ideal law. That troes 
on. It never is 60 small as when he touches it with per- 
fect obedience. It opens; it effulges; it hangs higher 
and higher, brighter and brighter, in the heavens, and 
the further he travels toward it, the further he is from 
it. The indispensable condition of our growth and devel- 
opment, therefore, is that by advancing toward our ideals 
in attempting to fulfil them, we thrust them further from 
us. 



The imagination — the divinest of mental faculties — 
is God's self in the soul. All our other facilities seem 
to me to have the brown touch of earth on them ; but 
this one carries the very livery of heaven. It is God's 
supernal faculty, interpreting to us the difference 
between the material and the immaterial, and the differ- 
ence between the visible and the invisible; teaching us 
how to take material and visible things and carry them 
up into the realm of the invisible and the immaterial, and 
how to bring down immaterial and invisible things, and 
embody them in visible and material symbols; — and SO, 

being God's messenger and prophet, standing between 
our sonl and ( rod's. 



"Let us, therefore," — on account of these two things; 
first, God's sympathy; and second. God's perfect knowl- 
i _ of all our wickedness, — "come boldly to the throne 
of grace," — and why? — "that we may obtain mercy, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 49 

and find grace to help in time of need." We go not to 
exonerate ourselves, not to plead our righteousness ; we 
go boldly, saying, " Thou knowest that I am sinful ; but 
Thou sentest Thy Son to atone for sins ; I am sick, but 
Thou hast the medicine for souls that are sick ; I am 
wicked, but Thou art He that delightest to forgive wick- 
edness." We are to go boldly to God's throne, because 
He is so full of mercies for our want ; so full of goodness 
for our wickedness ; so full of forgiveness for our sins. 
And God's knowledge of what we are, and all we do, 
instead of being an argument for fear, is an argument for 
confidence. 



When a child has been away all day long, playing 
truant, and the afternoon comes, and with it hunger and 
the necessity of shelter, he must go home ; and he goes 
towards his father's house, thinking to himself what plau- 
sible lie to tell, — how he can make tattered truth seem 
like an unrent garment. And so, with an ill-feigned ap- 
pearance of innocence, and perhaps with a forced smile on 
his face, he enters the door, trying to look as if he were 
not a guilty child. He runs with alacrity to perform 
every errand imposed upon him. His conduct, however, 
is suspicious ; for he is too good for an innocent child. 
He thinks nothing is known of his disobedience. But 
while he sits with the family at tea, the burden on his 
mind grows heavier and heavier; and he says to himself, 
" They are very kind to me, and if I thought that they 
knew it all, and they were so kind, how happy I should 
be ! " He expects that they will find it out, and that 
then there will be a time of it. Now his father and 
mother are pleasant toward him, but he thinks that by 
and by it will come out, and that then will follow chastise- 

3 D 



50 ROYAL Tin 'TILS. 

ment and trouble. And that great undisclosed £iiilt in 
the soul, that account yet to be settled, takes away all the 
joys of bis home, and makes the evening a torment. But 
if, when he came in, his mother hud stolen behind him, 
and said to him, in a gentle tone, " Wo know it all, my 
child; we are sorry ; but we shall say nothing about it; 
we -ball let it pass/' the child, as soon a- be found that 
it was all known and forgiven, and that he was the recip- 
ient of SO much love, not because they did not know it, 
but because knowing it they saw sufficient reasons why it 
should be passed by, and not laid to his account, how 
sweet to him would have been his father's and mother's 
kindness ! It would have brought tears to his eyes as it 
had never done before. And when he went to his couch 
at night, how sweet would their unscokling forgiveness 
have been to him! It would have been all the sweeter 
because all the time they knew his guilt 

Now, the apostle Bays, " With your guilt, with your 
trouble, go before God." II(i knows all. What nobody 
else know-. He knows. He knows what even the wife 
of your bosom does not know. He knows what has 
never been divulged to any living soul. Wicked thoughts 
and intentions in connection with your business, which 
perhaps no man knows except yourself, lb' know-. And 

when vim feel an impulse to go before God, do not say, 
U I would go; but that crime." He knew of that crime 
before He invited you to go to Him. Do not say,"l 

would go; but that unwashed lust.'' lb' ha- known that 

lust from the beginning. "All things arc naked and 

opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do/ 

""Lei us, therefore/ 1 says the apostle, "come boldly to 
the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find 

• to help." Grace to l«'1p, — that is it: grace to 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 51 

help you out of your sin. Let no one. then, who has a 
sense of his sinfulness, who is truly repentant, and who 
is striving to do better, hesitate to go to God. saying. 
"Have merev upon me. and helo me/' 



There is no boldness permitted toward God which is 
from our lower instincts and failings. The boldness with 
which a warrior meets his enemy ; the boldness of mere 
physical courage : the boldness of unrestrained, irrever- 
ent zeal. — these kinds of boldness are wicked before 
God. But. on the other hand, there is no one of oar 
religious feelings, in its own estate pure and zealous, and 
mrlarned, that does not permit us to come near to God. 
Xot only has every Christian man a key to the kingdom 
or' heaven, but every one ot our moral sentiments or feel- 
ings lias its own special key with which it has a right to 
open the door of God's privy chamber, and go in unro 
Him. What is the feeling that animates you? Is it 
conscience ? Is this feeling carried in accordance with 
God's truth and spirit r Then by it you may go bold- 
ly before God. Is it faith that irradiates the soul. — ■ 
that brings light from the heart clear up to heaven ? 
Then as angels went up and down the sacred ladder, so 
by faith may you ascend into the very presence of God. 
Is it hope that tills the soul ? To hope is given also the 
watchword, and it may go to God without hesitation. Is 
it love ? Love is a universal commoner. There is no 
thicket, or river, or obstacle, that love may not go through. 
It may go everywhere, carrving bounty, immerse and uni- 
versal. a:wl only bounty. Is it want, that knows not how 
to speak a word ? In heaven and before God the tears 
of want are louder than on earth are the loudest thunders. 
Is it sadness oi heart or remorse ? Whatever it is in the 



52 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

soul, that would fain draw near to Goi for relief, it may 
go to him boldly, and with confidence. There were tele- 
graphs before Morse invented batteries or lines of wires. 
The longest telegraph ever made was that between the 
heart of God and Buffering humanity. And every man 
that baa a want is a battery: every want is a wire: every 
groan or tear sends a message quick to the central deposit 
of all petition, — God's heart ; and from thence come 
back mercies quicker than return messages are ever re- 
ceived by earthly telegraphs. 



Is there anything more beautiful in a lower sphere than 
the dressing of a bride for her wedding? The tender 
hands of kind nurse, of loving sisters, and fond mother, — 
how they all wait upon her ! How the hours are consecrat- 
ed to her glory ! How her hair is parted and braided with 
sweet simplicity! How the veil is thrown over her with 
exquisite grace ! What bracelets, what rings, what jewels, 
contribute to decorate her person ! It is a great tiling to 
go to the toilet-table of a bride in a wealthy family, and 
see what the jewel box contains. 

N ■'. ( opened the jewel-box with the contents 

of which He dresses His bride, the Church: — "Bless 1 
are the poor in spirit." k * Blessed are they that mourn.'' 
"Blessed are the meek." "Blessed are they which do 
hunger and thirst after righteousness." " Blessed are the 
merciful." "Bless the pure in heart." "Blessed 

are the peacemakers." u Blessed are they which are per- 
il for righteousne* ." "Blessed are ye when 
men shall re\ ure yon. and -hall say nil 
manner of evil against you falsely, for my Bake. Rejoice 
I : for gre r reward in he v- 
• n : for bo persecuted they the prophets which were bo- 
jrou." 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 53 

Who wants to wear jewels ? There they are Put 
them on ! 



Theology is but a science of mind applied to God. As 
schools change, theology must necessarily change. Truth 



is everlasting, but our ideas of trutli are not. Theolog' 



J o' 



1 



is but our ideas of truth classified and arranged. 



How tenderly God speaks when He describes the way 
in which He deals with those who come to Him ! " The 
bruised reed I will not break." 

What is that ? Did you ever see reeds, or canes, grow- 
ing, that shoot up twenty or thirty feet, and are not thicker 
than your finger in the whole growth ?> If they are strong 
and whole, they cannot stand unless they are in some way 
supported by their fellows. But suppose the field is cut 
through, and as the man goes along, he strikes with his 
axe or hatchet one that is left upon the edge, and its stem 
is shivered. There it stands, so tall and tremulous, but 
now wounded so that a breath will cause it to fall to the 
ground. God says, I will deal so gently with you that 
the bruised reed shall not break, that tremulous weakness 
shall not fall. 

" The smoking flax I will not quench." Did you ever 
watch the flame when it was first applied to the wick, and 
you could scarcely tell whether you were deceived by 
your eye or there was really a light there, and the slight- 
est stirring, the breath that you breathed, would blow it 
out? It is very hard to make a lamp begin to burn. 
Now, says God, I will deal with those who come to me 
for help with such gentleness that the smoking flax shall 
not be quenched. If your soul to-day has one aspiration, 
if there is one spark of that glorious flame leaping up 



54 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

toward God, there is the promise of that blessed Spirit 
that shall take that heart of yours, like a lamp just lit, 
and God will cany it BO carefully and gently that it shall 
not £0 out until the whole is enkindled with light. 



God's love does not depend upon our character, but 
upon His own. I do not mean to affirm that it makes 
no difference whether a man has a good or a bad char- 
acter. I do not mean to affirm that there do not spring 
up between the Divine nature and ourselves, by reason 
of our relations to that nature, certain deeper and more 
wonderful affections. But I do mean to affirm this : 
that there is a great overshadowing love of God to us, 
that stands, not on account of our character, but on ac- 
cout of His. God's love for us is not affirmed to exist 
because God perceived a spark kindled in us gradually 
flaming forth, and reaching up toward Him. It is not 
affirmed to exist because our hearts, feebly beating, 
seemed to knock at the door of His heart, rousing, by 
their very spent and weak sounds, the compassion of 
the hospitable Divinity. 

Do the roots and grass and early flowers break forth 
from winter, and -end messengers for the sun to come 
back ? or dors the sun, come from its far voyaging, long 
to overhang the Bleeping places of flowers until they feel 
his presence, and, drawn by his warm hands, wake ami 
conic forth into a warmth and a light that waited ahove 
them while they were dea 1. and that would have bathed 
them yet, and all Bummer long, though they had Still lain 
torpid? 

Y*m; arc perpetual recipients of God's mercies. In the 
r^vjnd year there is not one moment in which He does 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 55 

aot brood over you with His thoughts. His love and 
tenderness are to you what the sun and the dew are to 
the plant. 

If you take a microscopic instrument, and examine the 
sting of a bee, magnifying it a million times, you will find 
that still it is so smooth that the eye can detect no varia- 
tions upon its surface. But if you take the finest needle 
that is manufactured, and look at it through a powerful 
microscope, you will find that it will appear rough in the 
proportion in which it is magnified. This figure illus- 
trates the difference between the Divine nature and the 
nature of man. The more you magnify your true con- 
ceptions of God's nature, the more beautiful does He 
appear ; whereas the more you magnify the nature of 
man the more ugly does he appear. And it is evident 
that if God loves man, it is because He has something in 
Himself that compels Him to love, and not because there 
is anything in man that calls forth His love. 



Men mount up into flashes of glorious realization, when 
it seems as if God then began to love them, because they 
then first become sensitive to His love. When a man has 
passed through religious changes from darkness to light, 

— when he has put off his worldly character, and taken 
on the character of Christ, — when, coming out of de- 
spondency, the compassionate Saviour rises before him, 

— then he stands up and says, " Christ has begun to love 
me. I have come to a state in which I know that God 
loves me." His impression is that the Divine love for 
him began when the burden which had weighed down his 
Eoul was rolled oif. 

Just as if a blind man, who had never seen the heavens, 



56 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

nor the earth, nor the sweet faces of those that loved him, 
should have a Burgical operation performed upon his i 

so that he could Bee objects around him, and should think 
to himself, on going out of doors, ik 0, how things are 
blossoming! The earth is beginning to be beautiful! 
Mountains and hiUs are springing up in every direction ! 
The forms of loving friends are being raised up to greet 
my gaze! And the sun has just begun to shine forth 
from the heavens!" But have not these things existed 
since the flood, and since the creation, although the man's 
eyes have not before been in a condition to enable him to 
see them ? 

When we are brought into the consciousness of what 
God's love is to our poor sinful natures, we oftentimes 
have the feeling that God is beginning to be reconciled 
to us. We take it for granted that as we were at enmity 
with Him, so He was at enmity with us. We have an 
idea that he was just as hard toward us as we were obsti- 
nate in violating His will; and that it was when we began 
to love Him that lie began to love us. It was then that 
we began to realize His love, but His love for us had ex- 
isted from the time we came into being, and had ever con- 
tinued with us. All the experiences of our inward and 
outward lives have been baptized, although unconsciously 
to U8, in His tender thoughts. Those thoughts run after 
US more than a mother's for her child that has gone away 
from home. 



O man, thou who art God's courier through lime and 

eternity, nothing that concerns you in the slightest degree 

can be considered as little. 



God stands and looks down ; and all things are naked 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 57 

and opened unto Him. To Him there are no locked-up 
covers ; no concealed crypts ; no dark caves ; no secret 
places. There is nothing that is not disclosed before Him. 
There is no man that is so encased or enrobed as to be 
hidden from Him. He sees through the thoughts and 
feelings of men. He beholds the fountains of their feeling, 
and the sources of their thoughts. The intents of the 
heart, — those psychological tremblings which indicate 
that the wires will show some thought or feeling, — even 
these are known to Him. The very beginnings of the 
life of the soul are plain unto Him. 



When a man looks at his own state and asks whether 
he shall be able to prevail, and stand in Zion and before 
God, it is not at all wonderful that his courage fails him. 
But why should he think of himself? Why should he 
measure his chances of everlasting life merely by the 
slender forces that he can address to the work of salva- 
tion ? Have you no God ? Have you no Saviour ? Was 
it not for you that Calvary became memorable ? Was 
one thought thought, was one feeling felt, did one drop of 
blood fall to the ground, on that blessed mount, in which 
you had no right nor part nor lot ? The treasure of Cal- 
vary is the birthright of every child that has come into 
life since the death of Christ ; and all that was then mani- 
fested by God, in word or thought or act, was but a feeble 
expression of the unspeakable love that was behind it all. 
All that He did then was for you. 



A doctor, ignorant of disease, is called in to cure a 

man that is sick. Before he came he expected to find 

the patient weak, and pale, and lying on a couch ; but he 

finds him disfigured, blotched, cramped, distorted, nervous, 

3* 



53 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

fHful, pettish, and he will not touch htm. He thought he 
was only sick, hut lie finds him ugly! As if ugliness was 
not a part of sickness ! 

Now, men have a romantic idea of being sinful. They 
think that to he sinful is something less than to he had. 
They regard sinfulness ,as something akin to weakness, 
rather than wickedness. And they say, u If I were only 
good, God would forgive me my sins ; hut now I make 
promises and break them, I say what I do not mean in 
prayer, I indulge in things which I pray God to enable 
me to avoid, I continually exhibit passions which I know 
are evil; and how can I hope for salvation ? " As if 
being filled with such things was not what we mean, and 
what God means, by sin ! As if it was not on account 
of these very things that w r e need the Divine recuperative 
power ! 

It requires no engineering to make a road that has 
been made already; but to cut through the mountain, and 
fdl up the morass, and make a road, does require some 
engineering. And if men were to make themselves com- 
plete before presenting themselves to God, there would 
be no marvel in God's supplying love. It is because 
men art; imperfect and wicked perpetually, that there is 
a marvel in this love. 



A GREAT many persons have almost no confirmation 
of hope, partly from a fault of teaching. There arc a 
great many persons whose conscience is educated to 

watch over them, BO that it becomes the torment of their 
life. They are always afraid they will make a mistake. 
They are forever on the doubtful edge of fear and hope. 

They arc never able to Bay, u I know that my Redeemer 
liveth." And even if they have moments of triumph) 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 59 

tliey are like flowers that are exposed to an uneven tem- 
perature. If they have plants of righteousness, they are 
like early vegetables that have no settled summer. They 
lose all the seed sown in early periods. 



When I stand and look at my congregation, I am like 
a man in a picture-gallery. Here is a bright, radiant 
landscape. Right next to it is a landscape that is storm- 
clad and dark. There is the picture of a calm, tranquil 
sea. Eight next to it is the picture of a sea that is rough 
and boisterous. Here is a scene of love. Right next to 
it is a tragic scene. There is a representation of wealth. 
Right next to it is a representation of poverty- Thus 
throughout the picture-gallery the most striking contrasts 
are seen. 

Now, I see just such contrasts when I stand and look 
from my pulpit. Here is a man whose face betokens 
consolation. Right next to him is a man whose heart by 
affliction has been left empty and desolate. There is 
a man triumphing in prosperity and enjoyment. Right 
next to him is a man who is stricken down by misfortune 
and sorrow. I see all these various conditions of life 
portrayed before me when I look. I see light and dark 
shades commingled all through the congregation. Some- 
times I feel inclined to preach to those who are hopeful. 
At other times I cannot help preaching to those wdio- are 
in darkness and great trouble. 

Now, you of this latter class, this is a comfort for you. 
God says that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor perse- 
cution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, 
nor anything, shall take you out of His hands. 

Let us imagine a case. An heir is so dissolute that he 
is outcast from his home. He determines to become an 



CO ROYAL TRUTHS. 

emigrant. He comes to this country, and changes his 
name, thinking to live here in obscurity. His prospects 
are anything but flattering, as is apt to be the case with 
children who are educated to nothing. He finds no em- 
ployment. He is at last driven to a mine, and he be- 
comes a collier. Acquiring some degree of love for 
work, he makes up his mind that he will build up a little 
property for himself. After toiling day and night for a 
long period in the mine, he feels that he has a foothold 
on life once more. Meantime, his father dies, leaving his 
whole estate to him. The agent, ascertaining his where- 
abouts, comes to bring him news of his good fortune. 
He does not at first disclose himself to him, thinking that 
he will put him to proof, and see what there is in him. 
Instead of saying, " I have come to tell you that your 
father's whole estate has fallen to you, and that you are 
exalted to a position of influence," he lies back, and takes 
means to thwart the man's schemes. The man only 
knows that his plans are overturned by somebody. He 
measures his distress from his own stand-point. The 
agent gets hold of his little property, takes a note against 
him to collect, and in various ways harasses and terrifies 
him, till he is overwhelmed with distress, and it seems to 
him that the end of all things has come, and he is ready 
to leave all his hard earnings, and run away, for the sake 
of escaping from his trouble. Then the agent Bays to 
liim, W I was only tantalizing you. I came to bring you 
tidings that you are the sole heir of your father's im- 
mense estate. I have been doing these things just to see 
how you would act I hear the testimonies of your heir- 
ship. Here is the evidence that you are the possessor of 
uncounted wealth." How different now do these little 
tantalizations Beem from what they did but just before! 



ROYAL TRUTHS. (51 

Then they seemed like thunderbolts ; now they have no 
noise in them. Then they seemed dark as midnight 
now they seem as bright as noonday. He laughs now 
to think that he cried then. He rejoices now, where 
then he was drowned in sorrow. 

But the eternal kingdom of God is yours, God himself 
is yours. Sustained by Him, upheld by Him, cared for 
by Him, we are held out for a little while in blessed tan- 
talization, soon to be caught up as His children, His heirs, 
and joint-heirs with Christ. What blessedness is there 
in this thought ! How should it inspire us with patience 
as we journey through life ! 



Imagine a dove saying, " I dislike this glossy green on 
my neck," and trying to remove it. It may rub the 
feathers off, but they will speedily come green again. It 
cannot eradicate the color from its feathers. The sun- 
flower will be yellow, however much it may prefer to be 
violet. Everything will have its own peculiar form, its 
own peculiar color, its own peculiar juices, its own pecu- 
liar odors, and its own peculiar constitution. God meant 
that it should be so ; He watches to see that it is so ; He 
holds things down in their places, and you among them, 
and your faculties in you. He gives you liberty to con- 
trol one faculty by another, but He never gives you lib- 
erty to rub out one figure. The problem you are to 
work out in life requires that you should use everything 
put into you. You think you are not doing it, but you 
are. God laughs to see how deceived you are, — to see 
you think you are not doing what you are, and to see 
you doing what you think you are not. 



The vague and sad forebodings of Christians as to 



62 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

their final safety are very unreasonable, in the light of 
God's revelation. There are men that hope sometimes, 
but doubt much more. This arises from an almost ex- 
clusive regard to one's own sickness, and an almost utter 
neglect to look at the fulness, richness, freeness. and in- 
exhaustible bounty of God's love for men. No man can 
find any reasonable comfort, I think, so long as he is 
more conscious of his own state than of the amazing 
grace and power of God. I do not know the man who, 
if he should look merely at his own disposition, at his 
past life, at his Christian experience, could find argument 
for anything but sadness and dissatisfaction in regard to 
the past, and fear in regard to the future. It is not in 
that direction that hope springs up. As long as a man 
looks in upon himself he is lik# one that opens a trap- 
door and looks clown to see the stars. The stars are not 
to be seen by looking that way. You do not want to 
look down into a well to see the light, but into the 
heavens above. 



To you that are not troubled it may seem an inconse- 
quential thing, but to you that are troubled it is a source; 
of inexpressible peace and gladness, that there is a God 
who knows how to take care of men when they do not 
know how to take care of themselves. 



There is but one Bingle view, it seems to me, on which 
a man can lie down and die without fear, and that is this: 
"God loves me, because it i> Hi- nature to love; God 

will save me, because it is by saving me that He will 
best please His own self." And if 1 go home to heaven, 

I shall gO, not on the step-Mono of my own virtue and 

goodness, bul because 1 am attracted by the drawings of 



ROYAL TRUTHS, y:j 

that Heart that suffered for me on Calvary, and that ever 
lives to intercede for me in heaven. We are to die in 
Christ. We are to die so that we shall not die. The 
egg is destroyed that it may give forth the life of the 
bird ; and death to us is emergence ; it is going forth to 
a clime of everlasting joy and singing. 



When two notes are brought to the same tone they 
accord with each other, and each note knows that the 
other is right because they accord ; so when two hearts 
are right, they will fall into such unison and concord that 
it will not be difficult for one to see that the other is 
right 



There can be nothing on earth half so important to a 
man as his own self. It is right to feel a lively interest 
in nature, in human society, and in the events of that 
great world-history which is always going on around us, 
and in our day. But what kingdom on earth is so wide 
or so important as the kingdom of God in a man's own 
soul ? The Eussian empire constitutes the largest earthly 
dominion ; and yet the sun need not employ half its hours 
in going from side to side of it. And the kingdom of the 
soul shall not have been traversed when the sun itself is 
burned to the socket, and its light has gone out. It is 
infinite ; it is endless. 



We are like men who go by their watches, but never 
set their watches by any regulator. We are continually 
regulating our lives by standards so false that they amount 
to no regulators at all. 



The reflection of other men's good-will toward us we 



G4 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

use more than anything else to estimate our characters 
by. Those who do this are like buoys that are always 
on the surface of the water, but that move with it as it 
rises and falls with the ocean-tides. We lie like floats on 

the world-tide, which goes in and out, and up and down 
and we have no gauge on the shore to show what is oui 
absolute condition. It is merely relative to the fluctua 
tions of the ever-shifting, ever-changing tide of humai 
feeling. 



Did you ever think what a volume your talk would 
make if it were printed ? If everything that some per- 
sons say in a single day w r ere printed, what a volume it 
would make! and if all they say in a year were printed, 
what a library it would make ! I pity the man that 
should have to read the one or the other. And yet, all 
flieir sayings, from day to day, and from year to year, are 
Hying in every direction, producing their effects upon 
those on whom they fall. The exaggerations, the over- 
Bolorings, the misrepresentation-, the lies (for we all lie 
continually) which escape us when we are speaking about 
ourselves, about our children, about our families, about 
3ur property, about our neighbors, about everything that 
jve have to do with, — what mast be their influence upon 
khe world? Still, how few there are that know anything 
iboul the use of their tongue, which is forever on the 



As warmth makes even glaciers trickle, and opens 
streams in the ribs of frozen mountains, s<> the heart 

knows the full flow and life of i: lv when it begins 

to melt and pass away. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 65 

I think that one of the master incantations, one of the 
most signal deceits, which we practise upon ourselves, 
comes from the use of language. There are the words 
that we learn in childhood which we abandon when we 
come to manhood. Generally speaking, our fireside words 
are old Saxon words, — short, knotty, tough, and imbued 
with moral and afFectional meanings ; but as we grow 
older these words are too rude and plain for our use, and 
so we get Latin terms and periphrases by which to ex- 
press many of our thoughts. When we talk about our- 
selves we almost invariably use Latin words, and when 
we talk about our neighbors we use Saxon words. And 
one of the best things a man can do, I think, is to exam- 
ine himself in the Saxon tongue. If a man tells that 
which is contrary to the truth, let him not say, " I equivo- 
cate " : let him say, ft I lie." Lie ! why, it brings the 
judgment-day right home to a man's thought. Men do 
not like it, but it is exactly the thing that will most effect- 
ually touch the moral sense ; and the more the moral 
sense is touched the better. If a man has departed from 
rectitude in his dealings with another, let him not say, " I 
took advantage," which is a roundabout, long sentence : 
let him say, " I cheated." That is a very direct word. 
It springs straight to the conscience, as the arrow flies 
whizzing from the bow to the centre of the mark. Does 
it grate harshly on your ear ? Nevertheless, it is better 
that you should employ it ; and you should come to this 
determination : " I will call things that I detect in my 
conduct by those clear-faced, rough-tongued words that 
my enemies would use if they wanted to sting me to the 
quick." 

We imagine with wonder the passage of a comet 



66 ROYAL Til UrilS. 

through space, flaming and sparkling along strange paths, 
and glowing upon -tars innumerable as it goes; but that 
is not half as wonderful afl the passage of the human heart, 
flaming and sparkling and glowing with ten thousand ef- 
- shot out upon every man we meet, as we move 
through life. Planets are eold and dead, and all their 
radiance falls without effect ; hut the human soul, as it 
passes up and down the ways of it- experience, is produc- 
ing ten thousand effects at every -ingle moment, many of 
which we know nothing about. 



Even in our religious feelings, we are prone to follow 
our sympathies rather than our judgments or consciences, 
and to measure ourselves by the general condition of the 
church or sect to which we belong. We are as if we 
were in a ship, and we called its voyage our voyage, and 
its passage our passage. And if our church or sect is 
flourishing, we have a feeling that we are flourishing ; 
and so we lose our personal identity. 



In t a great affliction there is no light either in the stars 

or in the sun; for when the inward light is fed with fra- 
grant oil, there can he no darkness though the sun should 
go out. But when, like a sacred lamp in the temple, the 
inward light is quenched, there is no light outwardly, 
though a thousand suns should preside in the heavens. 



Did you ever sit down and make an inventory of what 
you do, in order to come to a distinct understanding with 
re i rence to your use of time? You probably kn<»\v all 
about your possessions. You know every bond, if you 
have bond- ; you know every mortgage, if you have 
mortgages ; you know every pound that is deposited, if 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 67 

yon have deposits of money ; you know every piece of 
property, if you own real estate : yon know all your 
debts and credits. These things you look at both in 
detail and in the sum. But God has given our chief 
treasure to us in the use of time ; and how many of us 
understand that matter? How many of us know what 
we do with our time? How many of us have ever taken 
even a cursory view of one single year, saying. •• I am 
anxious to know, on the whole, how I carried myself with 
reference to a faithful use of the element of time through 
January, through February, through March, through 
April, through May. through June, through July, through 
August, from month to month ? What is the habit of my 
lite in this respect ? Of the time that is given me, how 
much of it do I use well : how much do I use indifferent- 
ly ; and how much do I squander ? n There is not one 
man in a hundred that ever thought of these things. TTe 
hear the general declaration that we ought to employ 
our time ; men are exhorted to be diligent in business, 
and fervent in spirit ; but I suspect that there is not a 
single person that ever sits down to make a deliberate 
inventory in regard to the element of time, so as to form 
a correct judgment of his habit of using it. Ought that 
so to be ? 



At this time, all over the trees, and throughout the 
grass, is deposited the condensed moisture of the air; 
and silent dew-drops are on every flower and every leaf. 
If you go and look at them in the darkness of to-night, 
there is no form or comeliness in them ; but by and by 
God will have wheeled the sun in its circuit so that it 
shall look over the horizon : and the moment its light 
strikes these hidden drops, small and scattered, every one 



(58 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

shall glow as if it were a diamond, and all nature shall 
be lighted op with myriad fires, each reflecting some- 
thing of the Divine glory. God has His own plans. 
He never told us in full what they are. We know this, 
however ; that we are fragmentary in our lives ; that it 
takes many to make the one idea of God ; that the work 
of past generations is hinged upon this, and that the work 
of this generation is hinged upon that of generations to 
come; and that God sits in sublimity of counsel, putting 
part with part, so that when we see the connected whole, 
the things that now seem most insignificant will shine 
out in wonderful beauty and magnificence. 



We are continually denying that we have habits which 
we have been practising all our life. Here is a man that 
has lived forty or fifty years, and a chance-shot sentence 
or word lances him, and reveals to him a trait which he 
has always possessed, but which until now he had not the 
remotest idea that he possessed. For forty or fifty years 
he has been fooling himself about a matter as plain as his 
hand before his face. 



THERE is many ami many a man who thinks that he is 
fighting the Bible ami exalting morality when he say-, " I 
believe in Buch an old man ; I believe in such a matron; 
I believe in such a person." No, you do not believe in 
them ; it i- the -race of God in them that you believe in. 
It is, after all, those spiritual truths that God more glori- 
ously writes in fleshly tables of the heart, than with ink or 
on tables of Stone, that you art; bowing down before. 



HOW many there are that use their ear- as a bolting- 
cloth, only to catch the bran, and let the Hour go. How 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 69 

many there are that hear everything that is keen and 
pungent and salient in scandal, and nothing that is favor- 
able, commendable, praiseworthy of men. How many 
persons are, in regard to hearing, like sentinels who, 
when set to take care of things that are good, are 
always asleep, but who, when set to take care of things 
that are bad, never go to sleep ? How many persons 
are there that form any conception of what the char- 
acter of their life is in this matter? One man goes home 
and sits down, and his companion says to him, "My dear, 
what have you heard to-day ? " and he commences to 
descant on the things that he has heard ; and it would 
seem as if he had been carried by God's providence into 
so many pleasant ways, as if he had heard so many pleas- 
ant things, that he had been signally blessed. Another 
man goes home and sits clown, and when he is asked, 
" What have you heard to-day ? " he says, " Heard ! I 
have heard some queer things"; and he goes on and tells 
something that he has heard about this man to his dis- 
credit ; something that he has heard about that woman 
that is derogatory : something that he has heard against 
the judge ; something that he has heard that implicates 
his next-door neighbor ; some story that a man should 
never hear, or that having heard he should never repeat ; 
things that one would suppose he must have gone through 
a pandemonium to hear. How many men take account 
of their habits of hearing ? I think it is important that 
a man should examine himself for the purpose of coming 
to some knowledge of his conduct in this regard. 



I have known many persons that, when they began to 
feel a certain sweet joy in singing a hymn, would check 
themselves and say, " Have I a right to this feeling ? 



70 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

does it proceed from the proper source?" It is exactly 
as though a bird Bhonld commence to sing on a tree close 
by your dwelling, and you should say to yourself "I 
wonder if that is the bird that I heard yesterday " : and 

you should run to the window to sec, and frighten it so 
that it would stop singing and fly away. If an} 

B to Bing on the bough of hope, the moment yon Bay, 
"Stop, let me Bee the construction of its vocal 

that moment it stops singing. If an emotion of sympathy 
with justice and conscience springs up in your bosom, the 
moment yon say, " Stop, let me see how it is coming,'' 
that moment it ceases to be. If you begin to experience 
love toward God, the moment you say, " Stop, let me 
look at this," that moment it comes to an end. The 
moment you look at a feeling, the feeling stop-, and in- 
tellection begins, thus revolutionizing the whole pro M 
of the mind. 



M MAN that i- born of a woman is of few days, and full 
of trouble.'' It comes to us all: not to make ua -ad, but 
to make us sober; not to make us BOrry, but to make 
ua wise; not to make as d - at, but by its dark — 

to refresh us, aa the night refreshes the day; not to im- 
pish us, but to enrich us. a- the plough enriches the 
field, — to multiply our joy, as d is multiplied a 

[redfold by planting. Our conception of life is not Di- 
. and our thought of garden-making is i ot inspired 
Our earthly flowers are quickly planted, and they quickly 
bloom, and then they are gone; while God would plant 
those flowers which, by trail-plantation, shall live for- 



Somi: of the most disagn eable persons that you meet 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 71 

in the world, are these Christian people that are consid- 
ering everything in the universe from the stand-point of 
their own culture. One of the most blessed things in this 
world is to be unconscious of self, and conscious only of 
God, the eternal sphere, and the great truths of the Di- 
vine government and human life. Happy is he before 
whom these things are so eminent that his own conscious 
self is gone. And yet how many well-meaning persons 
there are who are forever treating you to the various dish 
of their sensibilities, their struggles, their temptations, 
and their wants ; with whom it is continually I, I, I, — 
me, me, me, — my, my, my; whose life is one everlasting 
habit of egotism, only basted and served up in religion ! 



We part from this world strangers ; we come together 
in everlasting acquaintanceship. We lose our friends 
that we may really find them. The husbandman loses 
his seed in the furrow, that he may gain a harvest. We 
lose our friends that we may really find them a hundred- 
fold; for, that which we encircle here, that which our 
love cradles, that which flesh and raiment clothe, is not 
our friend. That which the body itself encloses is the 
friend. And who sees that through the composite flesh ; 
through a life which is itself but disconnected and frag- 
mentary ; through toils and struggles, and intermitted 
purposes and mistakes ; through griefs and heart-sorrow- 
ings ; through dim ignorance ; through yearnings and 
vague aspirations ? Who more than suspects the cause 
that gives forth these intermitted effects ? The soul, — 
who sees, who knows that? 



A plough is coming from the far end of a long field, 
and a daisy stands nodding, and full of dew-dimples 



72 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

That furrow is sure to strike the daisy. It shad* 

ow as _ - . and exhales it- gentle breath as freely, and 
.pie, and radiant, and expectant, as ever; 
and yet. that crashing furrow, which is turning and turn- 
ing others in its c car, and in a moment 
it whirls the heed] 38 *er with sudden reversal under 
the B 

And as is the daisy, with no power of thought, so are 
ten thousand thinking, sentient flowers of life, blossoming 
in places of peril, and yet thinking that no furrow ot -- 
aster is running in toward them, — that no iron plough 
of trouble is about to overturn them. Sometimes it dim- 
ly dawns upon os, when we see other men's mischiefs 
and wrongs, that we are in the same category with tl 
and that perhaps the storms which have overtaken them 
will overtake us also. But it is only for a moment, for 
we are artful to cover the ear. and not listen to the voice 
that warns us of our danger. 



Men never can find themselves of themselves, but 

always in the touch of some other and higher one. 



He that knows how to die in his pass ry day; 

he that kl ID his pride from hour to b 

lie that has Christ in each particular thwarting and i 

;'•- : he that kl - v. from the varied exp 
of life, to bring forth from day to day a Christian 

'ear the grand and final earthly experience 
to which he ifl _. There is no d that 

know bow to die ind. Those who know how to 

lay themselves upon Christ, and take the experiences of 
every-day life in the faith of ( tho 

will [n everything that ah r wound* 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 73 

big or healing, — they have nothing left at the end of 
life except peace, translation, and the beginning of im 
mortality. 



It is the nature of Christ to awaken in us. and to bring 
forth, that which we should have no power to excite in 
ourselves. In all the fields there is not one flower whose 
root is not organized for the promotion of its growth ; 
whose nature is not stored with all elements of develop- 
ment and of perfection. And yet, not one of them can 
op the clod, or struggle forth; not one of them can 
give birth to its leaves, or break forth in blossoming 
beauty, until the secret of their life, which the sun car- 
ries, is given to them. Then, when the light calls them, 
warmth ; then, when the sun has wrought might- 
vhhin them do they come to themselves. Their life 
is in Him. 



The losing- women who followed Christ must have 
found a daily heaven. His serene nature ; His benefi- 
cence ; His all-encompassing sympathy ; His disinterest- 
edness, that gave everything but asked nothing: His 
supernal wisdom ; His power over life ; His regency 
[ 3r nature ; His lordship over the winds that flew to 
His hand as a dove to its nest ; His mastery over dark- 
ness and death itself, calling back the departed spirit 
from its far-off wandering to life again; His effluent 
gloryj as He hung in mid-air, sustained by white clouds, 
Iked the night sea, carpeted with darkness; 
but, above all, that inspiration, that heavenly purity, that 
itnal life which touched their life, and that aroused 

m as they were Lever before aroused. — in short, the 
presence of their God! — all these things, abiding with 
4 



74 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

them, travelling from day to day with them, measuring 
out their golden year, gave them their first full knowl- 
of life as the soul recognizes it ! And these were, 
to their fund hope, doubtless, a perpetual gift. 



What is just, is more to us as we grow older. In 
y new relation of life into which we come we find 

out finer shades, higher color.-, nicer distinctions, and 
wider circuits of justice. Justice is never so -lender to 
us as when we first practise it. It grows in the im 
nation. It is enlarged by experience. It include- more 
elements, it touches things with a finer stroke, and it de- 
mands more exquisite duties, every single day and year 
that a man lives, who lives at all right. 



How many of my congregation have I seen in their 
troubles ! How many of them have I walked with in 
their hour of anguish for sin! Every Sunday I look upon 
a congregation, one in every six of whom, it i me, 

I have gone down to the baptismal water with, or sprink- 
led, and walked with, through all th P their heart- 
distress. V >r how many of them have I Bpoken v. 
of consolation at funerals? Where are the children, 
where are the brothers and sisters, where are the pan 
where are the kindreds of my church ? Where are our 

1 co-workers? "Where are those that \ 
in the height of personal expectation ten years | 

have lived ten years together, most of us, — some of 
Ufl longer than that; and have we not tracked Grod at 

> Btep, verifying Hi- declaration, "Ye -hall have 
tribulation' 9 ? And are we to look forward to the time 

ime with less expectation of tribulation ? Let each 
look upon hi.- household. Who shall be unclothed next? 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 75 

I desire to take it to myself. I desire to look at my 
plans and expectations in the light of this inquiry. For 
I too have made a garden, and have forgotten to put a 
sepulchre in it. I desire to commence a new survey. 
Let me go up to that central mound covered with flow- 
ers, and let me see if underneath those flowers there is 
not an opening mouth, — the darkness of the grave. 
And if there is, then let me rejoice ; for I am sure that 
that is an unwatered garden which has no sepulchre. In 
so great a congregation as mine, where there are so many 
thousands that by invisible threads are connected with 
this vital teaching-point, sorrow becomes almost a litera- 
ture, and grief almost a lore ; and we are in danger of 
walking over the road of consolation so frequently, that 
at last it becomes to us a road hard and dusty. We are 
accustomed to take certain phrases as men take medici- 
nal herbs, and apply them to bruised and wounded and 
suffering hearts, until we come to have a kind of ritual- 
istic formality. It is good, therefore, that every one of 
us, now and then, should be brought back to the reality 
of the living truth of the Gospel, by some heart-quake, — 
by some sorrow, — by some suffering. Flowers mislead 
us, beguile us, enervate us, make us earthly, even if they 
assume the most beautiful forms of loveliness ; while 
troubles translate us, develop us, win us from things that 
are too low to be worthy of us, and bring us into the 
presence and under the conscious power of God. 



There can be no barrenness in full summer. The 
very sand will yield something. Rocks will have moss- 
es, and every rift will have its wind-flower, and every 
crevice a leaf ; while from the fertile soil will be reared 
a gorgeous troop of growths, that will carry their life in 



76 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ten thousand forms, but all with praise to God. And so 

it is when the soul know- its Bummer. L we redeen 
weak thes its barrenness, enriches rerty, and 

makes its very desert to bud and blossom as the r 



A house built on Band is, in fair weather, just as good 
as if builded on a rock. .V cobweb is 9 good as the 

:i'-st chain cable when there is no strain on it. It is 
trial that proves one thing weak and another Btrong. 



I think: that faith and much thinking do not d 
well together ; not in religion alone. I do not think it 
does to think too much in friendship. Let a child think 
about all the things he sees his father and mother do, and 
see if he loves them any better after that. Let a friend 
go about insisting upon reducing all feelings and instincts 
to thoughts, and strive to understand the nature of emotion 
by thinking, — let him. instead of giving liberty in his 
heart, go to applying his philosophy to his friends, and 
see if he will stand nobler in friendship or not. Let him 
go out into the realm of thinking about eternal thii B, 
and it would be just as foolish. Let a man begin to study 
the relation of the race to <* _ \ eminent, and all the 

mutations of government, all natural and civil law. and all 
t]j»' ten thousand questions that rise up before the mind 

1 is inquisitive of such thoughts as t 
and is that i thing, — 

a man thinks upon them, the 
and the more is he en< . at depths give Dp 

their mists, and tfa white silver hue are hid in 

There are hours when it » - though ei 
thing from us; that there is no heaven, 

that it is all fancy and la dream ; that t. respon- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 77 

Bibility; that there is no such thing as sin and virtuo 
that we are all so many animals, we are all following the 
instincts and circumstances that press without us ; there 
is no God, or He would speak, or certainly He would give 
us some token in our extremest anguish that He is near ; 
there would be some dawn of light. There are a great 
many men who strive to explain these doubts by refer- 
ence to the natural laws, but no man has followed this 
line of thought to any satisfaction. There are a great 
many happy, genial, and hopeful theologians that think 
at last they have got up early enough to find out God, 
and so every generation you will find a man that ex- 
plains everything. He does until the next man kicks it, 
and it all goes back to dust again. When you shall chain 
the waves of the sea that they shall not rise any more ; 
when you shall fasten in the tops of the forest the winds 
that rock them, that make them sigh their dirges in win- 
ter and sing their anthems in summer ; when you shall 
stay the courses of the stars and bind the earth that it 
shall not roll in its orbit, then you may take these great 
questions, and, by the bands of your thought and by the 
cords of your philosophy, you may fasten them ; but so 
long as you cannot do that, so long will they have free 
course. And so with the thoughts of men. There must 
needs 2ome hours when a man finds himself quite drifted 
away from old thoughts. Contagious hours they are, 
hours of great trouble, awakening hours of philosophy 
and of doubt. In such hours as this there is nothing for 
it but to run, and there is but one way to run, and that is 
God ward. A man in these hours that does not run for 
God, should run for the lunatic asylum. There is but 
one way in which a man can find any rest, and that is to 
say blindly but desperately, " There is a Thinker, there 



78 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

is a Controller, and if men have not drawn His lineaments 
right, and if the portraiture of the books is not right, one 
thing I know, my soul proclaims there is goodness and 
wisdom, there is control. Whatever it is I seize it, I hold 

by an anchor to that blessed hope." The very moment 
a man begins to hold by that, sometime-, as by an elec- 
tric touch, the clouds lade away, the sweet beaming face 
of Christ shines again, and all the mists have gone as 
sometimes you have seen them in the morning disappear, 
you know not how ; we are bright again, and have joy 
in Christ, and in all the blessed promises of His word; 
and the miracles recorded there are not half as marvel- 
lous as the miracles wrought in the sweet experience of 
Christians every day. 

In cities, and in business, the proportion of men that 
have mistaken their calling is larger than anywhere else. 
I see men every day that are in situations for which they 
are not at all calculated. There are multitudes of young 
men that want to be rich in merchandise. They will not 
put their lily hands where the sun can brown them. 
They were born, they say, for better things. Many of 
them were horn for the poor-house, and they will be there 

in the end! They may meet with a measure of Success 
for a time, till the sap of youth is gone out of them, and 

then they will be lit only to be cast out, and to be trod- 
den under foot of men. 

If you transplant a tree in the spring, the sap in it will 
carry it half through the summer, though its roots may 
be dead. It will throw out leaves, and appear like a 
sound tree for a good part of the first year. But the 
next year it will die. And every man, when he starts 
in life, has enough of the sap of youth to carry him a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 79 

certain way, though he may have mistaken his calling ; 
but in the course of ten years, when that sap is expended, 
and he is rootless and branchless, where will he be ? 
There is a whole deluge of white-faced, white-livered, 
imbecile, lily-handed men in the city, seeking wealth 
without toiling for it, — seeking honor without achieving 
it, — seeking place without deserving it. They are ut- 
terly useless to society, and yet of all men they are the 
most extravagant in their demands upon society. Do 
you suppose they will go unwhipped? God laughs at 
them ; and so do angels, and everybody but themselves. 
They think that they are martyrs. They think that there 
is a mysteriousness in the providences of life, because 
such fair-haired, beautiful young men, who desired so 
much, and meant to have so much, got so little. And 
even what they did get was bitter. 

Did not they get what they deserved? Was their 
experience anything but the inevitable result of the vio- 
lation of a law of their being ? Nowhere were cause and 
effect ever better vindicated than they are in the perish- 
ing of ten thousand, whose ill-starred ambition leads them 
into things for which they are unfit, and induces them to 
seek results which they can never attain. Do you ask 
what you shall do ? Go to sea ! — we need sailors. Go 
out to work ! — we need farm hands. Go into the shop ! 
— we need mechanics. Do not congregate and house in 
the city, where, when having made a few abortive at- 
tempts to be honest and succeed, and having failed, you 
will take the gimlet of craft and cunning, and bore your 
way through life, until, your consciences being gone, you 
will resort to more positively dishonest ways, which will 
bring you at last to utter disgrace and ruin. 



80 ROYAL TltUTHS. 

There is a place where the glory of God shall be ar\ 
uninterrupted stream which shall be so clear, so apparent, 
that we shall live in the presence of it. That is to say, 
when we stand so as to see God as He is, there will not 
be a single thought nor a single emotion that shall not fill 
the soul with rapture ; there will not be a single emotion 
nor a single thought that shall not touch the soul as the 
hand of the musician touches the chord of the instrument ; 
there will not be a single thought nor a single emotion 
that shall not vibrate with admiring joy. For God is the 
centre of glory, and He acts on a pattern of grandeur in 
moral attributes, such, that to stand in His presence and 
see Him, is to be ceaselessly agitated and affected by the 
wonder of such a Being. AVe shall see Him as He is, — 
the God of glory ; and our eye will be so strengthened, 
that we can behold Him and not die. 



If a man has oil in his can, every drop he pours out 
makes his supply one drop less. There is no springing 
up from the bottom to prevent diminution in the supply. 
It i< not so with the sonl. The nature of that is to renew 
its supply, so that the more you draw from it, the more 
there is to draw ; the more it gives, the more it lias to 
give. Giving will make any man's bou! richer. 



When a person becomes a Christian, it is not possible 

for him to have anything taken from him but that which 
he cannot afford t<> keep; and that which ho docs keep 
will be more fruitful of joy than anything which an un- 
christian man p isses* -. I know it i- living to become a 

Christian, and death not to bo one. It is liberty to be 
a Christian, and bondage not to be one. To become 
a Christian is to come to that for which God made 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 81 

yoii ; it is to use your powers as God originally de- 
signed that they should be used. The object of Chris- 
tianity is to restore man to the nature which he originally 
possessed. It was for this that Christ came into the 
world. And they that enter upon a Christian life ear- 
liest are the most blessed. I do not say these things to 
the young because I am a pensioned minister, and be- 
cause it is my business to say them. I do not say them 
because I am a minister, but because I am a man. I 
would say them to my own son ; to the dearest friend I 
have in this world. I say them because my inmost con- 
viction is that they are true. 



Do you suppose a parent dislikes to see real vigor, 
and joy, and elasticity, and genius, and attainment, and 
capacity, in his children ? Is there anything that makes 
a parent happier than to see, so long as it is good, the 
utmost growth and development in his children ? If their 
powers are not perverted, the more they expand, the 
more satisfaction does the parent derive from them. 
And does God, who is more than any earthly father, 
love dry and withered natures, or full and joyful ones, 
that are pouring out the freshness of their life ? If ever 
you are going to be a Christian, do not set out to be a 
gloomy-eyed, twilight-faced, bat-like Christian, hovering 
between night and day. Do not be a Christian parsimo- 
nious of joy, and full of tears and sadness. Do not at- 
tempt to be a Christian after the pattern of the ascetic. 
" The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but right- 
eousness, and peace, and joy," — righteousness of rectitude 
and integrity, peace which God gives by the regulation 
of man's nature, and joy which is the reflection of heaveu 
from the burnished experiences of aw eniighte&ed soul. 
4* * 



82 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

I ask no young man or maiden to look upon a religious 
life as a life of toil and gloom ; I do not ask you to enter 
upon a religious life feeling that you are assuming a bur- 
den which you must bear till your nature is worn out. I 
come to where you are, and I strike on the rock, and say, 
u ye dead, come forth into life ! " I touch your blinded 
eyes, and say, " Look ! behold !" I put my linger to the 
portal of your ears, and say, " Hear the Word of the 
Lord, ye that are deaf!" I invite you to manliness. 
Receive moral power. Use all the faculties which God 
has given you in such a way that they will give you the 
fullest liberty and the fullest power possible. 



Is there anything in this world that grows so low as 
love ? Is there anything anywhere that is so stunted ? 
It grows as an evergreen grows in Nova Zembla, where 
the winter is long, and the summer is short, and where it 
can get but six inches from the ground. But when you 
carry it further south, it springs up and carries its stately 
growth full three hundred feet toward heaven, and stands 
emplumed and embowered there, showing what it should 
be, — and what love should be prefigured. 



There are a great many Christian men that walk up 
and down our streets, shaking their heads, and talking to 
young men in a supercilious, worldly-wise way, saying, 
-• Are we not deacons and elders? and do we not know 
what belongs to vital godliness? And do you suppose it 
is worth our while to be too scrupulous ? My young 
friend, when you have lived as long a- I have, you will 
nave learned a good deal more wisdom than you know 

DOW." And so they wink at indiscretions and dishon- 
esties essentially a- mean as the Devil, — and the mean* 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 83 

est thing in the world is the Devil. Do you not suppose 
that such men are infidels? Do you not suppose they 
are crucifying the things that are right, the things that 
are true, the things that are pure ? They sacrifice every 
quality that belonged to the nature of Christ Jesus. 
They deride and sacrifice every moral attribute which 
He possessed. And in sacrificing these, they sacrifice 
the Lord that bought them. I think they are the worst 
infidels in the world. No, no ; they are not, either, as 
long as they keep in the shop ; but when they walk 
about, when they go into the homes of the poor, and be- 
gin also to apply the same wretched infidelity to public 
questions, to the rights of men, to great principles, — for 
principles are the lines of latitude and longitude by which 
God divides the events of time, — when they begin to 
apply that same withering selfishness to human proced- 
ures, and attempt to bring questions of right and wrong 
down to the measure of the counter, rather than to that 
of the golden reed of God's sanctuary, they are even 
worse infidels than they were before. 

I bid you, therefore, to beware of the infidelity of the 
counter. And I also bid you to beware of the infidelity 
of the Church ; or of the enlarging of a man's right to do 
wrong, under the cover of doctrines and ecclesiastical ex- 
pedients ; — for never, since the world began, has there 
been more iniquity committed than under the priest's 
cloak, synodical or conventional. Christ has been cruci- 
fied by religious men for religious purposes. The great- 
est wickednesses that have taken place in my life has the 
Church winked at, and winked at for expedient reasons. 
Eeligion has ridden the earth as a red dragon. It has 
been the torment of men the world over. Not the relig- 
ion of Jesus Christ, but the religion of organized bodies 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 



of men who take counsel of their own selfishness and 
folly. I bid you to beware of all such religion as this. 



Some men seem to think that the glory of the Church 
consists in being let alone. What they esteem above all 
other things is jycace. A green mantling pool of what 
they call orthodoxy, with a minister croaking like a frog 
solitary, — that is their conception of a Christian church 
in a state of prosperity. But, according to the Bible, we 
are warriors. The battles we fight, however, are not 
battles of blood, but battles of love and mercy. We are 
sent to carry, not the sword and the spear, not rude vio- 
lence, but conceptions of higher justice, nobler purity, 
wiser laws, and more beneficent customs. The weapons 
of our warfare are not carnal. With these we contot, 
and we will contest, against rage and wrath and bitter- 
ness, knowing that lie that called us and sent us is the 
God of battles, and will guide us and give us that victory 
which, if worth anything, is worth achieving in the se- 
verest conflict. For victories that are cheap, are cheap. 
Those only are worth having which come as the result 
of hard fighting. 

HOW strange a combination of circumstances, that the 
Cross should have been lifted up so near to a garden; 
that the garden, of all place-, should have held, amidst 
it- treasure B, such a thing as a sepulchre hewn in a rock ; 
that thus a cold grave should have been unbosomed 
among flowers, and waited, for week- and months and 
3, for the coming of its sacred L r n<-t ! And now, how 
Btriking the picture! A few words, and the whole stands 
open to the imagination, as to the very Bight 1 The two 
women, side by side, Bilenfl and yet knowing each other's 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 85 

thoughts, with one grief, — with one yearning, — with 
one suffering! Home was forgotten, and nature itself 
was unheeded. The odorous vines, the generous blos- 
soms, the world of sights around them, were as if they 
were not. There was the rock, and only that to them. 
There was neither daylight, nor summer, nor balm, nor 
perfume. There were no lilies by their feet, nor roses 
around them ; for though there were ten thousand of 
them, there was to them only that cold, gray, sepulchral 
rock. See what a life theirs had been. 



The experience of every fresh mourner is, " I knew 
that Death was in the world, but I never thought that 
my beloved could die." Every one that comes to the 
grave says, coming, " I never thought that I should bury 
my heart here." Though from the beginning of the 
world it hath been so ; though the ocean itself would be 
overflowed if the drops of sorrow, unexpected, that have 
flown should be gathered together, and rolled into its 
deep places ; though the life of man, without an excep- 
tion, has been taken away in the midst of his expecta- 
tions, and dashed in sorrows ; yet no man learns the 
lesson taught by these facts, and every man lays out his 
paradise afresh, and runs the furrow of execution round 
about it, and marks out its alleys and beds, and plants 
flowers and fruits, and cultures them with a love that 
sees no change and expects no sorrow ! 



No man acquainted with men need have any philo- 
sophical scruple in believing in the existence of evil 
spirits. If there are any spirits worse than some men, I 
am sorry for them ! No man who watches what men do 
to each other need have any scruple as to the belief 



8G ROYAL TRUTHS. 

that evil spirits are occupied in tempting men. We can 
conceive of nothing done by a spirit, in the way of malig- 
nant temptation, that is worse than that which we see 
every day among living men. And those who doubt 
whether a benevolent God would allow a malign spirit 
to tempt His creatures, surely must have lived with their 
eyes shut. The question is settled in every street, the 
question is settled in every one hundred men, that God 
does allow men to live, whose business seems to be very 
largely that of pleasing themselves by injuring others. 
Those who have doubts on this subject cannot have 
weighed or considered the unmistakable and indisputable 
fact, that God does allow bad spirits in the flesh to tempt 
men to evil. Nor do I know why there should be any 
reason to suppose that He does not allow bad spirits out 
of the flesh to do the same thin£. 



Nobody is without his equivalents. If a man is very 
impulsive, he says, " O, if I could be as cool as that 
man is ! " The equator is always talking about icebergs, 
and icebergs are always talking about the equator. If a 
man is very phlegmatic, he says, "It takes me longer to 
get agoing than it does my neighbor to get through. I 
wish that I was quick.' , The other says, <; I am like 
powder and I go off like powder. I wish I was cold like 
this man." Nobody, I say, is without his equivalents. If 
you are phlegmatic, you have disadvantages which an 
impulsive man has not; but you also have advant 
which he has not. You have your platform, and he has 
his ; and yon are not to Btand looking and coveting each 
other's peculiarities. You are to accept your nature 
such as it is, and study how you can carry it in such a 
way as to glorify God and Berve your fellow-men. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 87 

Could that be a wise judgment that was founded 
upon the chaff, the husk, the stubble of the field. — igno- 
rant of the grain, of the fruit? Can that be a satisfying 
judgment of men which includes only the instruments by 
which they grow, and leaves out the very fruits which 
these appendages and instruments were set to nourish? 
As the inward state does not represent itself in the out- 
ward life, so neither is the outward life an index of the 
inward state. The richest often are the poorest ; the 
happiest often the least happy. The most sorrowful 
are fullest of joy. Misfortune is felicity; prosperity, 
bankruptcy; If you would know the meaning of these 
solemn words of infinite wisdom, — " He that findeth his 
life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake 
shall find it." 



Whew the sun disappears below the horizon he is not 

clown. The heavens glow for a full hour after his depart- 
ure. And when a great and good man sets, the west is 
luminous Ions: after he is out of si^ht. A room in which 
flowers have been is sweet long after the flowers have 
been taken away. They leave a fragrance behind. And 
a godly man who lives unselfishly and disinterestedly, and 
seeks the good of other men, cannot die out of this world. 
When he goes hence, he leaves behind much of himself. 
There have been many men who left behind them that 
which hundreds of years have not worn out. The earth 
has Socrates and Plato to this day. The world is richer 
yet by Moses and the old prophets than by the wisest 
statesmen. TTe are indebted to the past. We stand in 
the greatness of ages that are gone rather than in that of 
our own. But of how many of us shall it be said that, 
being dead, we yet speak? 



88 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Men mu3t not compare their own peculiarities with 
their neighbors', and say, u Their constitutional tendencies 
are such that they can easily restrain their faculties from 
working in wrong directions, and they ought to do it ; but 
I am so organized that I cannot do it, and it is of no use for 
me to try." I assure you that by faith and patience you 
can do it. There is release for you from your evil incli- 
nations, if you will but employ the powers which God has 
given you witli which to overcome them. The crooked 
can be made straight. As a crooked piece of timber can 
be made straight though its nature cannot be changed, so 
a man's faults can be corrected though his natural dispo- 
sition cannot be rooted out. 



We all know what is meant by a professional air. 
The actor, the physician, the merchant, the sailor, the 
schoolmistress, the minister of the Gospel, — any of them 
can be told almost as far as they can be seen. You cer- 
tainly can tell them if you talk with them. As men that 
work in the midst of odors carry about in their raiment, 
if not in their very persons, the savor of the things in 
which they work, so there seems to be a perfume of the 
business a man follows that strikes into him. When you 
see a professional man, you feel that he is a professional 
man, from his looks and his manners. AVe can easily dis- 
tinguish the great Beets which prevail in this country by 
tin' peculiarities that, mark them. 

NOW JU8( sucli a stamp is apt to be pat upon our piety. 
It is a certain smooth-Speaking; a pious way of talking; 
a restricted, narrowed, measured thing. Men that are 
Christians, or are trying to be Christian-, Seem to think 
that Christian character requires suppression: not so 
much opening out as Bhutting in ; not so much the carry- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 89 

mg of a lion-like front that drives evil away, as the carry- 
ing of one's self in such a way that no lion can see him, 
and nothing can get at him. There is a cowardly, white- 
faced spirit of professional piety in the world. Thank 
God, it is not as common as it was. It becomes less and 
less common, I think, every year. We are in a transition 
state out of it. Yet there are many things that tend to pro- 
duce a want of robust, open-faced, upright, manly piety. 

You have seen hedges, and you have seen forest-trees. 
Of all formal things in the world, a clipped hedge is the 
most formal ; and of all the informal things in the world, 
a forest-tree is the most informal. Now there are many 
persons that think Christians should be hedges, and that 
every spring and autumn they should undergo a Gospel 
shearing, so that they shall have regular angular sides. 
But the true idea of Christians is that they are to be like 
cedars of Lebanon, — great rugged growths of centuries, 
that never think whether this branch goes ten yards be- 
yond that one or not, but which attain greatness of stat- 
ure, and amazing strength and endurance. An old cedar 
of Lebanon will suck more sap from among rocks, than 
any of our hedges will out of the deepest ground ever dug 
by the gardener's spade. 



I understand by law nothing except an index of the 
way in which God's own power acts all the time. When 
we see a law, we see that wh'.ch signifies the way in which 
God invariably acts under certain circumstances ; and 
God's laws are nothing but words applied to habits of ad- 
ministration in the Divine Mind. And when you search 
a law of nature, you search the way in which He reveals 
Himself in certain administrative departments, and the 
way in which He always acts in such departments. 



90 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

God's sovereignty is not in His right hand ; God's sov- 
ereignty is not in His intellect; God's sovereignty is in 
His love. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, 
and whom I will I will harden." He stands in the pleni- 
tude of all-comforting grace, — grace not to be given to 
those that have, but grace to be given as raiment is given 
to those that are naked ; grace to be given as medicine is 
given to those that are sick ; grace to be given as food is 
given to those that are hungry ; grace to be given as 
charity is bestowed on those that are needy. God sup- 
plies, not the supplied, but the unsupplied ; he strengthens 
not the strong, but the weak ; he comforts not the rejoic- 
ing, but the sorrowing. 



There are a great many persons that are superstitious 
of the Sabbath-day, of the Bible, of prayer, and of re- 
ligious reading and conversation and institutions. Now 
these things are admirable. The Sabbath-day, the Bible, 
prayer, religious reading, religious conversation, and re- 
ligious institutions, are indispensable to the present condi- 
tion of the race and the world, and they are neither to be 
lightly spoken of, nor at all ridiculed or condemned. But 
then they are not religion. They are the means for edu- 
cating men in religion. They are instruments merely for 
the production of a certain result, and not the result itself. 
A man may have; flails endless, and not have wheat, al- 
though flail- are the tilings for getting out wheat when 
you have it. A man may have pigment-, and brushes, 
and canvas, and yet not have pictures, although these are 
tli'- things for making pictures. Raphael, and Titian, and 
Correggio, would have had no pictures if they had not 
had fingers, — though I doubt not they would have come 
Dearer to it than many do that have fingers and brushes. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 91 

Ploughs and harrows, and hoes and spades, are indispen- 
sable to the farm and the garden ; but a man should not 
worship a plough, or a harrow, or a hoe, or a spade, as if 
it was the thing which it was made to produce. Many 
persons confound the means with the end in moral things, 
although they never do in ordinary things. Many per- 
sons have great scrupulosity of conscience about the use 
of means ; but the absence of higher qualities of manli- 
ness, the violation of them, the total sacrifice of them, — 
these things give them little pain. Many men are ex- 
ceedingly careful of the Sabbath-day. They are exceed- 
ingly careful of the Bible. The Bible, — why, it would 
shock them beyond measure if a child should handle it 
irreverently. It gives them great pain to see any disre- 
spect shown to the Bible. They carry it as the old 
priests carried the ark of the covenant. About all the 
things that relate to religion as educating means they are 
very scrupulous. But when it comes to those qualities 
for which these were given, for which these are the ma- 
chinery, for which these are merely the schoolmasters, — 
when it comes to unmistakable truth ; when it comes to 
the most transparent sincerity ; when it comes to faith in 
God ; when it comes to courage, and simplicity, and un- 
selfishness, and meekness, — when it comes to these, they 
have no scruples. The idea of striking the Bible gives 
them great horror ; but the idea of striking a man, that 
is God's temple, has little or no effect upon them. And 
yet, when the round earth shall burn, the Bibles will 
burn too. But when the round earth shall burn, not one 
living soul will burn. All the wide world is but the tool 
of God for the development of the one fruit, — man. For 
man was that fruit which hung upon the tree in the gar- 
den, and man is to be the fruit issuing therefrom. This 



92 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

fruit, if plucked too soon, will ripen yet. It is the fruit 
which God means by the husbandry of time, — by all 
the institutions of the world. And what kind of piety is 
this that stickles for a Sunday, and docs not care for a 
generation or a race ? What kind of piety is this that 
stands tremulous with superstitious fear for church regu- 
lations, for religious ceremonies, and for days, but with- 
out concern lets world-currents flow deep as the currents 
of the Dead Sea over generations and races? It is 
that kind of piety which existed when Christ condemned 
the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites, and which con- 
sisted in putting the instruments above the end to be ac- 
complished. 

No man is prosperous whose immortality is forfeited. 
No man is rich to whom the grave brings eternal bank- 
ruptcy. No man is happy upon whose path there rests 
but a momentary glimmer of light shining out between 
clouds that are closing over him in darkness forever- 
more. 



WHILE you are talking about distributing Bibles, 
really, in men's esteem, you are Bibles yourselves walk- 
ing through the streets and in places of business. Do 
not you know that hundreds of men judge the truth or 
falsity of religion by what you are and what you do? 
Do not you know that men are wont to say, " O, the 
preacher drone- and drones about virtue, but jusl Bee 
how his church lives. As I understand it, virtues are 
things that are to be looked for in the life. The doctrine 
that a man preaches IS to be judged of by what his peo- 
ple are." 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 93 

Hundreds of men fail by the nervous scrupulosity by 
which they mean to prevent failure. For we do best the 
things which we do without special thinking. Were a 
man to attempt to walk upon a beam six inches wide, 
lifted eighty feet above the ground, he would begin to 
think, " What w r ould become of me and of my family if I 
should fall ? He would endeavor to put forth skill in 
walking ; and the moment he did that his steps would be 
loose, tremulous, and uncertain. But lay that beam 
upon the ground, and he would walk it from end to end 
as if it had the width of the whole floor in its six-inch face. 
In the one case he would fall because he took so much 
care, and in the other case he would succeed because he 
took so little care. 



Christianity does not disdain fear, nor conscience, 
nor circumspection, nor watchfulness against evil. It 
enforces these things heartily and often. But they are 
incidental. It relies mainly upon the direct energy of 
a man's faculties in things that are good. It seeks not 
to repress life, and keep down growth, because abun- 
dance of being is more difficult to restrain. Rather, it 
urges men to seek right things with such force, and with 
such persistence, that no strength shall be left for wrong 
ones. We are to overcome evil by doing good, and by 
beins: good. 



o © 



We blame no one that for his own sake he keenly 
feels the pangs of separation ; but we do wonder that 
there is no more generosity in the love which we bear to 
our dear ones, and that the full and gloiious certainties 
which illumine their condition wdien they have passed 
beyond us, do not cast back some light of joy upon our 



94 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

grief! We mourn as those that have no hope ; whereas 
our mightiest griefs should be embosomed in hope and 
calm certainties of joy. 

You sometimes see people who never impress you as 
having any depth of moral life, any richness of inward 
nature, any power of being, either in heart or soul; but 
who oppress you with such an intolerable conscientious- 
ness about trifles, that you almost wish that they would 
break forth into violence, into anything that had life and 
grace of liberty in it! They step so many inches at a 
pace; they lift their hand in regulated gestures; they 
drop their sentences as if each word were a stiff metallic 
type, faced, and nicked, and registered. The tediousness 
of such men is almost beyond endurance. They are no 
more representative of true Christian conduct, than a 
dead and dry stake is representative of a living tree. 



A 3i ax that is afraid is never a man. A man may 
have fear as a speciality, and yet be manly ; but where 
that is characteristic, — where a man is always in fear, 
— he cannot be an example of true manliness. There is 
a kind of fear that is sweet. It is the fear which love 
ts ; this is that ,k fear of God which is the beginning 
of wisdom." That tender, tremulous fear that we shall 
not do all that we ought to do, or all that we wish to do, 
for the honor and the pleasure of those whom we love, 
and whose life is more to as than our own, is exquisite, 

elevating, noble ; but that fear which drops far below the 

Bentiments, and moral feelings, and affections, and that 
produces a state of antagonism between a man's lower 

interests and his higher feelings, is paralyzing, demoral- 
izing, unmanly. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 95 

Let all your things be done in love. As this great 
rugged globe, with all its jagged hills, hirsute with forests, 
shagged all over with bush and thicket, and rolling in an 
atmosphere of light, seems to those who look upon it in 
far-distant planets as round, and smooth, and radiant as 
their bright orbs seem to us, so the robust and rugged as- 
pects of a true manhood, revolving in an atmosphere of 
Christian love, are smoothed and softened to the most at- 
tractive beauty. Strength in every part, and love round 
about all, is the receipt for manhood. 



We are moving away, and faster as every cord is 
loosed that binds us to earth ; faster, as every heart that 
we loved draws us upward. Let us rejoice. And as in 
autumn the very earth prepares for death, as if it were 
its bridal, and all the sober colors of the summer take 
higher hues, and trees and shrubs and vines go forth to 
their rest, wearing their most gorgeous apparel, as ending 
their career more brightly than they began it ; so let our 
spirits cast off sombre thoughts, and sable melancholy, 
and clothe themselves with all the radiancy of faith ; 
with every hue of heavenly joy. 

" Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." 



The problem of human life has in the natural world 
many illustrations ; but it has no real analogies. We are 
set, at the first, to develop an animal nature, as a socket 
in which is to stand the spiritual, burning with a steady, 
guiding light. The progressive subjugation of the lower 
part of our nature by the higher, the harmonization of 
the whole round about a central spiritual power, — this 
has no parallel in the natural world. There are many 
tendencies which lead toward it, which point at it; but 



93 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

only that The death of seeds, that they may give forth 
germs ; the absorption of seminal leaves, that the new 
plant between them may thrive from their stores ; then 
the subordination of the leaves to the uses of the blossom 
and the fruit, so that from the beginning to the end all 
the lower organizations and functions serve and lead 
toward yet higher, and the very plant dies in ripening, 
leaving its fruit or its seed to go over to another season, 
— these things, I say, may illustrate the spiritual devel- 
opment of character out of a physical condition, but can 
do no more. They do not afford an analogue. Man is 
the highest divine creative development upon earth. 
That which is the characteristic aud glorious element of 
manhood is our spiritual nature. The body is but the 
temple ; the altar fire and holy service are within. That 
which is our real life can be seen only by its effects ; 
never in itself. The reality of our life, the fulness of our 
being, the richness of God's gift to us, divine, immortal, 
glorious, is invisible. No one has ever seen the man 
that is in man. 



Many persons mistake the province of forethought and 
calculation, and attempt to carry themselves in the details 
and minute particulars of life by them. They rigidly in- 
spect every act and experience, as though every act and 
experience must be taken up and looked at conscien- 
tiously, and narrowly, and watchfully. They go about 
with looks precomposed. They are sure to measure 
their Bteps, They will not laugh without a properly 
considered reason. If some wag surprises them into a 

laugh, they run back and look to see it' they ought to 
have laughed. Everything in them seems to be drawn 
out a- tape measures are, and » i mi . like' them, to have 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 97 

a spring, which causes it to fly back instantly, and to be 
measured off into inches and fractions of inches. There 
is nothing about them which reminds one of natural clus- 
ters, or tendrils, or moss, or wild-flowers. Everything 
about them is after the pattern of yardsticks, and sur- 
veyors' chains. They are a sort of conscientious arith- 
metic. Their mouth acts, not as flowers do, obedient to 
the sap beneath ; but as do the locks of safes full of gold, 
into which a formal iron key must needs be thrust when- 
ever you open them. Can there be anything in this 
wwld so intolerable as the doing everything on purpose ? 
He is a nuisance that is ever self-poised, self-conscious, 
self-measuring! that is forever studying and measuring 
God and the universe w T ith reference to Self. Such 
complete addiction in thought and deed to one's self, and 
to what concerns him alone, is the quintessential idea 
of selfishness, instead of manliness. 



There is an infidel " don't care," which is the Devil's 
net to catch the heedless ; and there is a Christian " don't 
care," which is a cord of God to draw men toward heaven. 
A man who forms a purpose which he knows to be right, 
and then moves forward in its execution, without stopping 
to inquire whether the individual steps which he takes 
are just what they should be, and without caring what 
their immediate consequences may be, is a manly man. 
There are a hundred that will repair a mistake made by 
such a man where there is one that will repair a mistake 
made by one always fearing. There is something in 
human nature that responds to manly courage wherever 
it is found. 



Ah, what mean Christians coward Christians are ! 

5 Q 



98 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

They are not fit to be in my Father's houte. A man 
that professes to be an heir of God, forever evading or 
backing out of difficulties, forever studying to know how 
lie may avoid trouble, I am ashamed of such a relation! 
lie is no relation of mine. He does not belong to my 
Father. He has none of my blood in him; for my blood 
is of Christ. A man that is afraid of right and its eon- 
sequence-, of justice and its consequences, and of man- 
hood and its consequences, is so much a Christian, that, 
of all sinners, surely, he is the chief! 



Christian character can never be Scriptural or accord- 
ing to the Scripture ideal, which is only an inventory of 
negatives. There is, in Christian character, much that 
is negative. Unquestionably, "Thou shalt not" consti- 
tutes a very large part of the Christian teaching, but 
"Thou shalt," a much larger part. It is very important 
that a man should not swear; that he should not lie; 
that he should not gamble ; that he should not steal ; 
that he should not drink to intoxication ; and that he 
should not eat to gluttony. We are to build these neg- 
atives along evil ways, like fences along precipices. 
And I do not ridicule nor dissuade from negatives, Bu1 
BOme seem to abide in them, and to think that they have 
met the requirements of religion when they have with- 
held themselves from positive wrongs ; whereas we are 
to develop the actual graces. There is to be a forthput- 
ting in things that are right 

It is not good husbandry that keeps the plough going 
so that no weeds can grow, nor anything else. Good 
husbandry keeps down the weeds, to be Bure, but does it 
for the sake of letting corn grow. And there must be 
a positive crop developed of virtue before all the con- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 99 

ditions of religion are fulfilled. No man can have a 
manly Christian character who is merely reserved, re- 
strictive, conservative ; who avoids evil, but does not 
produce much positive good. 



These qualities of truth and honor, which the world 
appreciates and admires, and which the Bible recognizes 
and commends, constitute one of the developments of a 
Christian character. If you have these qualities, men, 
after they have associated with you for years, will bear 
this testimony respecting you : " He is like a glass bee- 
hive. You can always see what his motives are. He is 
full of honey. The more you know him, the better you 
will like him. He is true and honorable." But there 
are men who are like another kind of beehive, — one in 
which the bees are all dead, and there is nothing left ex- 
cept empty comb, and miserable moth-millers. 



The soul is formless, is shadowless. No eye beholds 
it ; no hand handles it ; no pencil may draw its linea- 
ments. The mother that gave birth to her child ; that 
overhung the cradle ; that carried her babe imbosomed ; 
that studied the girl's girlhood, youth, and womanhood, 
till the cloud of love opened and hid her in the wedded 
life, — even the mother does not know the girl nor the 
woman. Nor does he that takes her know her, when she 
is taken ; nor even she herself. Our life is hinted, but it 
is hidden. It gleams out at times; it flashes in sparks 
upon us. None has seen the full orb, or known the full 
measure of it. We stand before each other as volumes 
of books. The binding and lettering are plain enough ; 
the contents are unknown, or but dimly suspected. We 
are like books in which some things are to be bidder? 



100 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

from the common reader a> unsafe, and at every few par* 
; 2 iphs the critical thing- are expressed in a dead lan- 
guage. So in human life, the simplest things are read 
the interior things are not legible. 



Tin: wry -lender hold which Christ has taken of our 
lite is nowhere else shown so much as in the wanton 
of our grief and surprise at the death of our beloved 
Why Bhould they not die ? Were they given to us that 
we might Bequester them? Does no one else love our 
children but ourselves ? Are we to employ our lo\ 
chains and bonds, that we may bind them forever to 
the earth ? Shall we girdle them with our seitish; 
Were they sent into life as into a campaign ? and shall 
we mourn that the battle is quickly fought, so that it be 
victorious ? Were they sent into life scholars and ap- 
prentices ? and shall we mourn that their apprenticeship 
is so soon ended, and their indentures broken ; that they 
are so soon graduated and their diplomas awarded ? I 
have never Been any man hanging crape upon : 8 be- 
cause the blossoms had fallen, that the fruit might swell ; 
but I see people patting crape upon their doors, and 
up<»n their <>wn persons, because Bummer ha- come .-"on- 
er to their children and their companions than they 
thought 



When men have lived loin:, and outlived strength and 
rity, we do not marvel that they die; but we think 
that early dying is mysterious. That God might en- 
Lth the year, and leave not one moment without a 
blossom, He hath ap] <\wy period. 

S hinga are made m in earliest Bpring, Borne 

in latest ; some in early Bummer, Borne in midsummer* 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 101 

Multitudes are appointed for the autumn, and some God 
sets to put wreaths on the very brow of winter. In like 
manner, there are different periods of blossoming out of 
life. 

You have probably noticed that when men walk across 
a stream on stilts, if they look at their feet to see where 
they step, their head begins to swim, and very soon they 
have to swim or drown ; whereas, if they fix their eye 
upon a single object on the opposite bank, and never look 
at their feet at all. they reach the other side in safety. 
Now, if a man stands looking at this world, he gets dizzy 
and intoxicated, and falls ; whereas, if he fixes his eye 
upon the bank of the eternal world, he walks straighter 
in this world, and is more sure of reaching the other side 
in safetv. 



I sexd to you. my congregation, the tidings of the de- 
parture of one who a few years ago was gathered, with 
a great multitude besides, into the membership of our 
church, but whom God hath lifted up and glorified in the 
church of the first-born in heaven. She is separated 
from you ; but even more from me. From her very 
youth she was reared under my eye. and in such endear- 
ing intimacy, that it is like the taking of one of my own. 
She went forth into a far land, but hath gone still far- 
ther. Most fair was she in ffoinff, but now still fairer. 
A pilgrim, she sought for knowledge and for beauty in a 
distant land. Better knowledge and higher beauty she 
hath found in a better land. For her the gate of heaven 
opened forth from Italy. The old city of Milan has 
always been reverend to me, with venerable associations 
of history ; but hereafter, when its name is mentioned, not 



102 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

first will come to my mind its galleries rich in art ; itfl 
architectural structures ; that wondrous cathedral, that 
lifts up its white and glittering spires and pinnacles 
against the background of the Alps : hereafter, to me, it 

is the city from whence God called Annie Howard to 
that more glorious city whose builder and whose mak< 
God. Her earthly work is done. The education oft- 
of strifes, of sorrows and griefs, is suddenly ended. She 
was nearer perfect than we knew, since God saw that it 
required but to change the climate, and the fruit was ripe. 
A character that seemed destined to long life for its 
necessary development is now rounded up and completed 
in the bliss and blessedness of the eternal state. Mourn- 
ers there are, but we are not of them. We stand and 
look upon that shore unwet with tears, and see that noth- 
ing hath suffered harm. That which has fallen is that 
which was made to fall. That inward life hath blos- 
somed and ripened far beyond the reach of our earthly 



Tin-: promise of God is not this: " Do you declare 
what you want, and be pious, and I will see that the 
plan which you mark out is filled up." He does not 
promise that if we will draw a check, filling up the blank 
with the sum which we want, He will sign His name to 
ir. And for this Bimple ; men are W^)U, and God is 

; and He will not permit men to destroy themselves. 
History ha- shown that if men could have their own way, 
if they could have their wants fulfilled, it would be the 
undoing, I will not say of ninety-nine in a hundred, but, 
probably, of every one of USJ and therefore, God, who 

loves us bo well, will no more permit us to mark out the 
things which we are to have, than a parent will say to a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 103 

child, u What do you want ? " and then promise to give it 
what it asks for. It would want the razors, the tempting 
bottles of medicine, the wine and brandy, (till it had 
tasted them !) and such like things. Therefore, the par- 
ent knows that it is not best that it should be allowed to 
have what it wants. Till it ceases to be a child, the pai - 
ent must decide what it shall have. 



I have no doubt that the Devil overreaches himself 
and cheats himself; but in any transaction between you 
and him, he is longer-headed than you are. And if a 
man sells his principles for secular prosperity, he shall 
find in the end that the writings drawn and the promises 
made were all spurious. Honesty is the best policy ; 
and of honesty, that which has the most of God in it is 
the best. 



If you are to spend your life as a poor man, you can 
better afford to be poor if you are a true Christian, than 
if you are not. If yon are to spend your life in moderate 
circumstances, those circumstances will be a thousand 
times better to you if you are a true Christian than if 
you are not. If you are to attain to wealth, or to emi- 
nence in literature or statesmanship, or to power, or to 
influence, it will be better for you to be a true Christian 
than for you not to be one. "Wherever you are to be, 
and whatever you are to be, in the ordination of God's 
providence, a spirit of Christian manliness will be a help, 
and not a hindrance, to you. No man need feel that he 
cannot take upon himself a Christian life because it will 
stand in his way ; no man need feel that it is necessary 
for him to attend so exclusively to his external affairs 
that he has not time to look after religion; for Christ 



104 ROYAI TRUTHS. 

stands, saying, U A spirit of righteousness such as God's 
kingdom propounds and demands is every way favorable 
a> a conditio;) of success and of happiness in human 
life." 



Men that reject religion in favor of indulgence, do not 
stand any chance of permanent prosperity. Such men 
are like gypsies that, by some freak of fortune, are turned 
into a magnificent mansion, well built, well furnished, 
and well stored with works of art. These gypsies go 
to work and break to pieces the exquisitely carved fur- 
niture, pull down the rare pictures, and strip the house 
of all the valuable things in it, and burn them, in order 
to make their pot boil, and thus to serve their lower 
nature, until, by and by, the whole dwelling is desolate, 
and bleak, and barren. And men who reject religion 
and serve their passions, are doing the same thing. They 
are kindling those lower fires at the expense of every- 
thing broad, and line, and beautiful in their higher na- 
ture. And though the process may go on with some 
sort of Buccess for a little time, it will not be long be- 
fore they will be as bankrupt in secular things as they 
are in spiritual. The cases that are exceptions to this 
are rare. 



It was a remarkable paying of one of the Revolution- 
ary heroes, when Congress, instead of passing a bill for 
more soldiers, recommended a day for fisting and prayer, 

that there might be a good deal in fasting and prayer, but 

he had noticed that God's providence was on the side of 
strong regiments. I have? noticed thai God's providence 

is on the side of clear heads. I believe that there is a L r <">d 
(leal in Clod's providence in this regard: thai wherever a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 105 

man walks faithfully in the ways which God has marked 
out for him, providence, as the Christian says, — luck, as 
the heathen says, — will be on that man's side ; and I do 
not believe that fire and water, and wind and earth, and 
all the seasons, will work into the hands of a man who 
refuses to walk in the ways which God has marked out for 
him. In a long run you will find that God's providence 
is in favor of those that keep His laws, and against those 
that break them. 



As we know the odorous vines of rare and exquisite 
flowers which are grown behind high, opaque garden 
walls only by the fragrance which they waft to us through 
the air, while they themselves are invisible ; so are we 
conscious of the heavenly and spiritual elements of noble 
natures about us, rather by their effects upon us, than by 
any open spectacle of them. 



I have taken notice that upon the tops of our churches 
which have steeples they put weathercocks ; and I have 
taken notice that those weathercocks run their nose 
around hither and thither with the wind the whole year. 
You can tell by our churches which way the wind blows. 
But I have taken notice that while these weathercocks 
revolve around, there is an iron rod on which they are 
fastened that stands pointing, in storm and sunshine, by 
night and by day, straight up toward where God lives. 
Men are the weathercocks in human affairs, and we are 
apt to look at them, and not to see the heaven-pointing 
iron finger. Men that look only at these weathercocks 
are always shifting in their moods and expectations. If 
we would but look higher than these, to Him that lets 
the winds blow, and holds them in His hands, we should 
5* 



10G ROYAL TRUTHS. 

not be subject to such mutation-. such fear.-, such expec 
tations of disasters, Bach troubl 



No truths that are distinct from matter, and are in 
their nature spiritual, m so full and perfect when 

you have embodied them in words, as when they exist 

'y in the form of ideas ; and we are forever re 
ing them, hoping to clothe them in stronger words and to 
present them to the mind and heart with yet clearer 
impress. But you never can do it. You never can in- 
carnate a thought perfectly. It is too much for w 
And much less can you incarnate one principle that un- 
derlies another. 



There is no such thing as immediatism. Immediatism 
i< the fool's philosophy. Cause and effect are universal ; 
and between all growths there must be room for the lev- 
_" of causation. There is nothing to which this truth 
is more applicable and important than this : that all de- 
velopment of the soul toward character takes place little 
by little. To-day in one direction, to-morrow in another; 
to-day by one instrumentality, to-morrow by another; 
and what the whole of tfa emulating and 

results is to be doth not yet appear. It is an invisible 
! is growth by part- toward a whole ; but 
DWth which to the end of this life will still remain 
lentary. 
Look upon some building in process of construction. 
All round about it are BtO - The archi- 

knows for what they were out, but you do not. Wheth- 
er it is cornice or window-cap. whether it i- top of this 
■mi or of that, you do not know. Vast timbers, in 
the framerV mind fitted for their place-, and brought 



ROYAL TRUTH b. 107 

together here, give to your eye no indication of their 
function or their position. They lie around in their 
several heaps. As the workmen hoist them to their 
places, some order seems to begin. Yet it doth not ap- 
pear what the whole is to be ; nor will the beauty and 
fairness of the whole appear until it is completed. And 
what a building is whose materials are gathered and gath- 
ering ready for construction, that is man in this world, 
— a creature whose parts are yet under the hammer. 
This virtue, that grace ; this self-denial, that restriction ; 
this courage, that patience ; this faith, that love ; this 
sentiment, that aifection, — all these varied elements, 
touched now by one instrument, and now by another, 
form, little by little, but never shaped into a whole in 
this world, that structure which is to rise into perfectness 
in the other life. 



No man is a Christian in any typical sense of the term ; 
no man presents a type of Christianity, who lives simply 
by force of duty. If there is no love in you ; if there 
are no bubbles that reflect heaven before they break ; if 
there is no singing joy; if there is no cheerfulness; if 
there is no spontaneousness ; if there is no automatic life, 
then, although you may be a Christian, you are a Chris- 
tian in the same sense in which a chicken is a bird when 
it is just breaking the shell, when it cannot run, nor fly, 
nor do anything except peep. You are like an unfledged 
robin in the nest. And how different is the robin that is 
grown, and that can mount up and make circles through 
the air in its flight. The peculiarity of Christian life in 
its characteristic elements, is, that it has so taken God to 
be its Father, and Christ to be its elder brother and Sav- 
iour, and the service of God in all purity and nobleness to 



108 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

be its delight, that it I 9 spontaneous. It is joyful 

living! not drudgery, nor even duty. 



Before you can tell whether a man is prosperous or 

not, yon must go into the man hims 1 must go and 

see how he lives in his Boul ; you must go and see what 
hi< secret thoughts are. I tell you there is more joy to 
many a pauper who looks at the sun and the grass and 
the flowers, and listens to the birds from the almshouse 
window, than there is to many a millionnaire. I have 
known a good many of these rich men. I always make 
friends with them, that I may find out what sort of men 
they are, what kind of a life they live, and how they en- 
joy themselves. I was very much struck by a fact that 
was related to me of a very rich man — he i- well known 
in New York, but I will not mention his name — by his 
agent. Said he, " I have often heard him turn in his bed 
in the night, saying, i God ! God ! God ! Wh< n 
will it be morning ? ' " It did me ^ood ! When a man 
has built his bed out of hard gold, he does not sleep any 
easier than he would if he had built it of iron or stone. 
When a man builds his life out of metals, he must have 
a metallic life. 



He is rich who is inwardly rich. lie is poor who ig 
inwardly poor. lie is prosperous for whose spiritual cul- 
rk together. In the vineyard, we meas- 
cluster; not the leaves and the rank-growing 
vine. And it is the fruit that we must measure in men. 
They that care for the body only, are 1 - who 

fill tin ir conservatory with flower-pots, and these with 
compost, but forget to put seeds therein, or flowers 
Dirt and pottery are all the Sowers they have. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 109 

For the most part, natures rich in moral elements 
have risen only so far above the world as to be able to 
brood over it ; to cloud it with sadness ; to rain down 
upon it some drops of cheerless sorrow. It is doubtful 
whether it be a blessing to receive such an endowment 
as makes the world too poor to live in, and yet reveals 
no oihertrworld, and no better sphere. 



" Stand fast in the faith." There are some men who, 
because they want to grow, are continually being trans- 
planted ; and they think that, because they keep moving 
from place to place, they are gaining ; but they gain 
nothing at all. Trees that grow fastest stand stillest. 
Running after every new thing that presents itself does 
not increase the growth of Christian graces, or anything 
else that is good. If a man would grow spiritually, he 
must have a stand-point, a fixed root-place, for his relig- 
ious convictions. 



What do you want ? Torpor ? listless indifference ? 
the quietness of men that preludes spiritual death? or 
times when there is such a sensibility of conscience, such 
a rousing of universal attention, when the hearts of men 
are waked up by the presence and power of God, until 
men feel that life is earnest, and realize that there is 
tremendous sweep and importance in moral principles ? 
Are not these times in which men ought to wish to live ? 
What if, here and there, trade and property go down? 
Nothing goes down till manhood goes down ; and noth- 
ing goes up that does not take manhood up. It is a 
painful thing to lose property, and it is a painful thing to 
be in disagreement with our fellows: but these are not the 
worst things that can befall a community, if they lead to 



110 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

nobler citizenship, a higher public spirit, a purer admin- 
istration of affairs, and a more universal justice. Are 
not these the things for which we have been living? 
Have you not, many of you, been praying, ' ; Thy king- 
dom come"? And when God's kingdom comes, crowns 
go down. The king said, "Thy will be done," and down 
went his throne. The aristocrat said it, and down went 
his aristocracy. The old inquisitor said it. and down 
went the Inquisition. They prayed, " Thy kingdom 
come," and God took them at their word ; forth came 
the people, back shrunk their oppressors ! They ran to 
hold the kingdom down, while yet they prayed, M Let it 
come." Tyrants would be infidels if they knew what the 
New Testament really means. When priests read it, 
they find much in it that God never put there. The 
Bible is like a noble mansion built for God's people. It 
has been w T rested from them. It has been held by cun- 
ning priests and plotting despots. It is full of the slime 
of their wicked interpretations. Priests that believe 
God's Word to be a bulwark of oppression, are jealous of 
its authority. They pray for its spread They pray for 
that kingdom in which they are to be terrific kings and 
priests. But God sends them insurrections, revolutions, 
democracies, and free states. 



No man has known himself until he has known Christ. 
Our own will has no potency, and our own affect ions 
have but little power to develop our spiritual life. This 
is a Divine work. N*! man has ever known himself 
pt through the experiences of faith, of ecstatic love, 
of holy aspiration, of that self-renunciation which comes 
with the higher forms of love. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. HI 

If God should refuse to interrupt the course of men, 
they would scarcely know the strength of their lesistance 
to Him. It is not when the cable lies coiled up on the 
deck that you know how strong or how weak it is ; it is 
when it is put to the test, and is made to sing like the 
chord of a harp, in times when the ship is imperilled, and 
the waves are beating fiercely against it. And it is only 
when men are brought to the test that they can tell what 
their real nature is, or how strong their instincts and 
passions are. 

There are a great many persons that want to be Chris- 
tians, who have no idea of Christianity, except that it is 
something sombre, which is to be endured, rather than to 
be enjoyed. They think they would prefer being Chris- 
tians to being damned. They are so afraid of the future, 
they have such a sense of immortality, that the thought 
of venturing upon the other life without some hope of 
salvation, is terrible to them. So they say, u I am will- 
ing to undergo whatever there may be that is unpleasant 
in religion, for the sake of securing my eternal welfare " ; 
and they go to priests, and humble themselves before 
altars, and avail themselves of every conceivable means 
of grace that is presented to them, that they may escape 
into the purity and liberty of life hereafter. 

0, poor, misguided man ! You are called, not unto 
bondage : you are called unto liberty, — only use not lib- 
erty for an occasion to the flesh. God summons you, — 
and he summons you, not as a master summons his slave, 
but as a father summons his child. That voice which 
sounded on Calvary, having gone up to heaven, comes in- 
flected back in tones of cheer and love, and hope and glad- 
ness, and calls you: and Christ — ever-living, not now on 



112 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

earth a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, but in 
heaven a Prince and a Saviour — says, " My son, give 
me thine heart"; and this being given, He says, u Now 
eater into all the royalty of my possession and domain. 
Thou, as my child, art also heir with me to an eternal 
inheritance. Thou art to be a king and a priest before 
God." 

Yes, when you are called to be a Christian, you are 
called unto liberty. You are not called as convicts to do 
penal service in a spiritual penitentiary. You are called, 
rather, to the freedom, the largeness, the sweetness, and 
the manliness, of a nobler character than ever dawned on 
the imagination of heathen poet. To be a true man ac- 
cording to the ideal of the New Testament, is to have a 
heart full of faith and confidence in God, and to have all 
that liberty which love begets in a child that dares to 
look his father in the face, and call him by the most 
familiar names. 



A man cannot do his duty because he most save the 
Church! Now the Church is of no more account than a 
straw, except for the justice and the truth that are in it. 
When you have sacrificed real piety for tin; sake of saving 
the Church, you have killed a man and got a corpse. 



A great many have a superstitious feeling about rend- 
ing the Bible. It is the effect that reading the Bible has 
on a man's life and conduct that make- it beneficial to 
him; but there is an impression that a man has but to 
read it to be benefited by it. So men carry texts as 
Indians carry amulets, with the BUper8titi0U8 idea that 
God will ble88 them to their good. The mere reading 
of the Bible, or carrying of texts, will not do you any 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 113 

gnod. A man may own a farm, and yet go to the poor- 
It vrse. A man may be s:> ri:h in land that a tenth part 
of what it is capable of producing would be sumeient to 
port him. and ye: wan: the necessaries of life. His 
land must be cultivated, or it will do him no good. 



A 3i ax is not prosperous because he makes money, 
because he is skilful, or because lie has knowledge. That 
man who is happy; that man whose mind is like a well- 
chorded harp, and is responsive to enjoyment ; that man 
who knows how to enjoy with his intellect, with his moral 
sentiments, with his :as:e : that man who knows how to 
reap joy from all his social affections ; that man who 
knows how to stand strong without being debauched by 
his animal passions ; that man who knows how to rege- 
late his physical life : that man who has supreme use of 
himself all through: that man who is nappy in the broad- 
est way. and with the greatest number of fountains of en- 
joyment. — that man is prosperous. On the other hand, 
a man may be a ripe scholar and a rich man. and not be 
prosperous. A man may be a miliionnaire. and yet be so 
miserable as to groan all day and curse. ah night. A man 
may have all the outside things which the world affords, 
and yet not be a happy man. One man may have a chest 
full of excellent tools, and be a bungling workman; while 
another man may have nothing but a jack-knife, and be 
a skilful workman. One man may have ever so many 
external means of enjoyment, and be miserable : while 
another man may have scarcely any external means of 
enjoyment, and be happy. You must not. therefore, 
argue that a man is prosperous because he has influence, 
or power, or money, or any of these things. If you want 
to know who are prosperous, rind out who are happy. 

H 



Hi ROYAL TRUTHS. 

You would think to look at that bell up in the belfry, 
tt O, 8ucb a bell, lilted up so high. — it only needs that 
some one should pull the rope to make it sound gloriously 
through the air! n Well, pull the rope ; it sounds for all 
the world like a tin pan ! It is cracked. I see men in 
the old belfry of prosperity ; and other men are lool 
up at them and saying. -0 how happy they must be!" 
You will find them to be good for nothing the moment 
you subject them to that test. 



We know that the gifts which men have do not come 
from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual 
man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own 
line by education than without education, just as you can 
make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it 
than if you do not cultivate it ; but no cultivation in this 
world will ever make an apple out of a potato. It can 
be developed, but it must be developed according to the 
laws of its own nature. Education will make it more, 
but will not change its nature. If a man was not born 
eloquent, he cannot be bred to eloquence ; if a man was 
not born to a sense of color, lie cannot be educated to a 
sense of color ; if a man was not born to 3 96 of form, 
he cannot be educated to a Bense of form ; if a man was 
not bom to a quick creative genius, he cannot be trained 
to it. Where these thin. - . they are gifts in the 

inning. Education make- them better and more usa- 
ble ; but it cannot create in men what God did not create 
in them when Ho started them in life. 



Tiikki. i- not a man that cannot be made to sin in one 

or another. Some men can by lust ; some cannot 

by that, but can by avai: mnot by that, but 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 115 

can by ambition ; .some cannot by that, but can by vani- 
ty ; some cannot by that, but can by pride ; some cannot 
by that, but can by superstition ; some cannot by that, 
but can by the weakness of sentiment ; some cannot by 
that, but can by the scruples of conscience. Even men 
that are in the most propitious circums lances, even men 
that are hedged in by Christian organizations, and moral 
sentiments, and Gospel sentiments, and every instrumen- 
tality calculated to shield them from the evil influences of 
the world, are perpetually breaking through and over 
these safeguards, and yielding to temptation. 



The vital difference between heathenism and the wor- 
ship of Jehovah, as established and recorded in the Old 
Testament history, was in reality the difference between 
lust and virtue ; between gross, sensuous indulgence and 
a moral, pure, economic life. The vital force of idolatry 
was its orgies, — not its theology or mythology. 

We live in the midst of vulgarities ; little petty troub- 
les ; a thousand mechanical things that have not much 
juice in them. The greatest part of our life is spent in 
contact with things that have very little in themselves to 
reward our sensibility. We must, therefore, have some- 
thing in the soul to make them glorious. 

Walk in the midst of sunlight, and find me, if you can, 
one thing that is homely. The vine that has lost its 
leaves, and is without beauty ; the leafless tree, that 
stands homely ; the bare post ; the dry stick ; the moss- 
covered stone ; the old tumble-down rookery, — these 
are luminous and beautiful in the sunlight. 

Now, the sun can pour beauty on things that have no 
beauty of their own ; and there is nothing that has not 



116 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

the power to take beauty when poured upon it. And 
God makes the human soul that loves Christ to be filled 
with such a power of hope and lakh and love and joy and 
enthusiasm, that when they pour it out on daily life it 
makes things luminous and beautiful. 



WHERE a man turns from evil, and takes hold on good, 
there is to be more than meditation or wishing or willing; 
there is to be expression. Even thinking cannot be clear 
until it lias had expression. We must write, or speak, or 
act our thoughts, or they will remain in a kind of half 
torpid form. Our kinder feelings must have some ex- 
pression, or they will roll out of the mind as clouds roll 
out of a hemisphere. Our kinder feelings must ?*ain, or 
else they will never bring up fruit or flower. So it is 
with all the inward feelings ; expression gives them full 
development. Thought is the blossom ; action is the 
fruit right behind it. 



O, now easy it is for a man's lips to say, " Thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven ! " A red-hot plough- 
share running among the roots in your garden, would not 
be more blasting to them, than the will of God — if it 
were done in your nature — would be to your pride, your 
avarice, your idolatrous affections, your lusts, your appe- 
tites, your pa>sions. And would you dare to open the 
doors and chambers of your soul, and say, understanding 
what you did, u Walk in, thou Prince of glory, thou holi- 
est Ono. and lot Thy will be done in me ! n Would you 
dare to go home to your household, and a>k that God'fl 
will might ho done there? Would you ho willing to have 
God come into your business, and to have His will rectify 
your journals, and ledgers, and bargains ? Are you pre- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 117 

pared to submit your papers, and plans, and ambitions to 
God, and say, "Thy will be done in all these things"? 
Could you take the infinite crookedness of your daily 
life, and say to God. " Straighten this"? Have you come 
to that state in which you can say to God, - 1 am blind, 
and Thou art all-seeing; Thy will be done concerning 
me"? It would be like hell and damnation to men. to 
let God's will come with power and rectification into 
their practical lives ! 

Expedients are for an hour ; but Principles are for 
the ages. Just because the rains descend, and winds 
blow, we cannot afford to bond on shifting sands. 



The child that is at school, in the beginning of the 
term, jealously prepares his little bow and arrows, and 
traps, and springs, and riddles, and puzzles, and what not, 
Then, they are choice treasures to him, and he mourns if 
anything befalls them. But when the last days of the 
term come, how generous he is in distributing them. He 
tosses them to one and another of his companions, saying, 
" Here you. may have them if you want them : I do not 
want them any more/' He is glad to get rid of them. 
The things that a month or two a^o he guarded sedulous- 
ly in his treasure-chamber, now have no value to him; 
for the hunger of father and mother is on him. He says 
to himself, " Day after to-morrow I am off" ; and he 
cannot eat, nor sleep, nor play, such is the excitement 
which he feels at the prospect of going home so soon. 

Now what home-sickness is to the child away at school, 
that to the soul is heaven-sickness, which sets us free from 
the ten thousand joys and sorrows of this world, if we real- 
ly are hea?en-sick. 



118 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

How little you know what will be the effect of what 
you do when you cast that little black seed of a poison- 
ous plant into the ground. It looks as fine as a seed of 
the most harmless flower; but how little do you know 
what it will come to. How little do you know what the 
plant will be from the seed. And so shall it be with the 
human soul that grows and grows in pride, in selfishness, 
and in hostility to the Divine will. Such a soul drops 
into death as the seed drops into the open furrow. Its 
root shall come forth again, it shall lift up its trunk again, 
it shall grow again ; but, oh ! who can tell what that 
growth may come to? To what will the unregenerate 
man come when he grows in the soil of another life ? If 
in all our developments here we are but seeds, to what 
states of wickedness shall w r e come in that land where all 
restraints are removed from men, and they are left to be 
swept on by the whole force and impetus of their de- 
praved natures ? 

I think that many people take their troubles by the 
imagination. I think that more than half that we suffer 
through fear of troubles, is that which we are made to 
suffer by magnifying them. You suffer ten times as 
much in thinking about having your tooth drawn as you 
do in having it drawn. I do not think the Burgeon's 
knife, in whipping through the flesh and around the bone, 
L r iw- half as much pain as the patient Buffers in thinking 
about having the operation performed. We take our 

troubles, and turn them over, and look at them; we im- 
agine what form they will assume under such and such 
circumstances; we make an inventory of them: we mus- 
ter them, and call the roll, and put them in order, and 
march them first this way and then that ; we annoy our- 



ROYAL TRUTHS, 119 

nelves with them as much a? possible. Men are infer- 
nally ingenious in tormenting themselves with troubles 
which, ninety-nine times in a hundred, have no existence 

except in their imagination. For although there are 

such things as troubles, generally speaking those things 
that hurt are thing- that we do not imagine are going to 
hurt. When grief puts its harness on a man. the place 
where it rubs and binds is not where there are pads, but 
where there are no pads ; the place where it bears heav- 
ily is where he has make no provision for it. 



There is a point of application to persons who suppose 
that mere reformation is all that is required of a man that 

is sinful, and that the more radical doctrine of being born 
again is characteristic of olden times, and is not needed 
now. If the very direction of your life is wrong, if the 
very cast of your character is wrong, if you are wrong to 
the very foundation of your being, then no mere varnish- 
ing no mere whitewashing, no mere changing of external 
decorations is sufficient for you. You need to be built 
over again from bottom to top. It is the testimony of 
Christ, the mild speaker, the sweet and loving One, 
u Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom 
of God.'' The change that must be made in you is one 
that starts a man over again in life. And how blessed to 
me is this fact. My heart leaps up. sometimes, at the 
thought of it. When I see men reeling and staggering 
with wickedness, striving with vices and crimes, struck 
through with the leprosy of sin, how blessed it is to me 
to be able to say to them. " You can have another chance 
in life ; you may throw away all the past, and begin anew; 
you may be born again, like a little child, and start afresh, 
in spiritual life, as if you had never lived ! " How 



120 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

blessed and encouraging to those who are weary of the 
burden of their sins, and discouraged at every attempt to 
make themselves better by successive upbuilding, is this 
doctrine of a new birth, so deep, so efficient, that it 
changes a man's will, from one of insubordination, to one 
of submission, to the Divine will! We are diseased with 
sin, and we need a remedy as comprehensive and thorough 
as our sickness ; and that we have in the grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, — that we have in the gift of the Holy 
Spirit of God. 

It would be a very small thing for the captain of a 
piratical vessel to show that he kept it perfectly clean, 
that his men were orderly, and that he and they were 
guilty of no special violations of the etiquette of life. If 
a vessel is a piratical vessel, and at war with every civil- 
ized nation on the £lobe, that is enough to condemn it. 
Its organization, the purpose of it, is radically and atro- 
ciously wrong. And these single virtues of a man's 
character are of little account, so long as the very foun- 
dation of his being is corrupt. It is a small thing for a 
man to show that he has never committed any memorable, 
flagrant sins. It is far better, of course, for a man to 
cultivate virtues, and abstain from vices. I would say 
nothing to discourage from any virtue, or to encourage in 
any vice. But I say that mere right-doing, and absti- 
nence from wrong-doing, is not all that is required of men. 
A man's whole life is more than any individual act. The 
opposition of the heart to God is of itself a thing merit- 
ing judgment-day condemnation. Nothing more than 
this is required to exclude a man from the glory of the 
eternal heaven-. 



UOYAL TRUTHS. 121 

Whenever you see flowers, understand that there is 

a meaning in them; and remember that Christ has said, 
with reference to them, •■' Consider." You have no right 
to pass by the smallest, the tiniest, the most inconspicuous 
flower, and say. '* 0, it is a little common flower." A 
common flower? It is God-opened, and God-built; and 
Christ has said respecting it, " Consider." Yes, there is a 
meaning in flowers. It is a precious meaning, — one 
that you need, and one that will kindle up your life, and 
make your soul glow with radiance. Take it, and profit 
by it. 



Men say, K It is impossible that I should have an emo- 
tion of hatred toward God. and never know it. Do you 
suppose I should not know fire if it touched me ? Do 
you suppose that if a man were to put caustic on me I 
should not know it? And do you suppose I could have 
a feeling of hatred toward God and never be conscious of 
it ? " There is such a thins as latent hatred, that must 
be inflamed before it will manifest itself. Men say, " Do 
you suppose I could carry fire in my bosom and not know 
it ? I have felt myself a hundred times, and I am not 
hot." But there may be fire raked up, as well as 
fire in full glow. There may be a susceptibility of heart 
that stands prepared, like powder in magazines, to be 
ignited. A man may be like a military fortification, with 
implements of war of every kind ready to be brought 
into requisition the moment the signal gun is fired. But 
ic is a military fortification, though the signal gun may 
never have been fired, and though not one of these im- 
plements has ever been brought into requisition. It is 
a military fortification, though a particle of powder may 
never have been exploded in it. It was built for war 
6 



122 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

from foundation to turret, and all the implements it con- 
tains were made for war, and they are in readiness to be 

applied to the purposes of war when the proper time 
shall come. 

Now look at the soul, — castellated, fortified, provis- 
ioned, armed. Though the day may not have come when 
its mighty implements have been used, yet they are ready 
to be used at any moment when the proper circumstances 
arise. A man may have qualities of mind which do not 
manifest themselves in his life, because the circumstances 
necessary to bring them into action do not exist 

It is charged, not that every man has come to a fla- 
grant outbreak in opposition to the Divine Being, but 
that every man has elements that are opposed to the 
Divine Being, which, the moment he is brought to a real- 
ization of God's authority, will develop their real charac- 
ter. You are not obliged, in order to be at enmity with 
God, to say to Ilim, in so many words, " I will not have 
Thee to reign over me." Whether spoken or not, that is 
the natural language of the unconverted human heart. 



To a resilient nature nothing can be more trying than 
to lie aside from usefulness and be worthless. If it please 
God to say to us, "I lead you through dark and critical 
ways where ordinary and nnsustained manhood cannot 
walk, because I want an example there " ; it fires the 
soul with such a conception of the mission of suffering, 
that we are able to endure it, and to endure it cheerfully. 



THE tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of 
the nations, has been evilly dealt with, [ts boughs have 
hern lopped, and its roots Marved till its fruit i> knurly. 

Upon its t >p had been Bet scions of bitter fruits, that 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 123 

grew and sucked out all the sap from the better branches. 
Upon its trunk the wild boar of the forest had whetted 
his tusks. 

But now again it blooms. Its roots have found the 
river, and shall not want again for moisture ; the grafts 
of poisonous fruits have not taken and are blown out ; 
mighty spearsmen have hunted the swine back to his 
thickets, and the hedge shall be broken down no more 
round about it. The air is fragrant in its opening buds, 
the young fruit is setting. God has returned and looked 
upon it, and behold, summer is in all its branches ! 



In our social intercourse we perceive how differently 
children behave under restraint. If you attempt to gov- 
ern one child, you meet him face to face, and he flames 
at you like a little volcano. The next child you attempt 
to govern is not one whit more willing to be subdued, 
but he draws a veil of tranquillity over his rebellious 
spirit, and glides away as if to obey you, simply to get 
out of your reach. One colors in the face, and waxes 
hot, and openly violates your commands ; the other says, 
" Yes," and goes and does as he has a mind to. Both of 
them are fractious, and both of them disobey you. It is 
not always the most obstreperous natures that are hardest 
to be subdued ; it is oftentimes these soft, gentle natures. 
There are persons that are amiable, and that go purling 
through life as little brooks do through meadows ; but no 
brook runs up stream. There are persons that are world- 
ly and notoriously without God in the soul, whose dis- 
positions are soft and tranquil, simply because their 
nature works by softness and tranquillity : but they 
are just as much opposed to the Divine will as if their 
opposition were more open and declarative. 



124 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

It is not in vain that I have preached that this life is 
but God's school-house, in which we are being prepared 
for an eternity of blessedness in His presence. The 
tilings that are thing backward and forward in this world 
are God's shuttles, that carry the thread out of which are 
to be woven the garments that we are to wear hereafter ; 
and blessed are they whose shuttle carries a thread which 
shall £rlo\v in garments of white evermore. 



Paul had brought near to him — nearer than the 
things which the senses ministered to him — the eternal 
realm of blessedness beyond this sphere, the habitation of 
God's sons, where Christ is ever present with them, in- 
spiring them, and rewarding them, and leading them to 
higher joys and nobler enterprises of usefulness forever 
and forever. This was so near to Paul that he lived in 
sight of it. and said, i% 0, these little distemperatures, — 
this being beaten with rods ; this receiving stripes ; this 
being shipwrecked ; this being in perils of sea and of 
land; this being cold, and hungry, and thirsty, — these 
things only tap and hit the body : they do not go inside ; 
they do not strike through. I live in such a nearness 
my coming glory, in such a nearness to the invisible and 
the eternal world, that I regard these things as of no 
account when compared with that, I do not care for 
them." 

And why should we ? We see the same principle at 
work every day in little things. If in Kansas the C 
ful husbandman, * ittle have hut a faint 

chance of living the winter through, sees a wisp of Straw, 
a handful of stalk-, or a particle of hay being wasted, it 
1 him. He is 2[e of Btarva- 

tion that he cannot atford to have anything wasted 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 125 

But go into Illinois and Indiana, where all these things 
are abundant, and where the herds are their own harvest- 
men, and tramp down a thousand times more than they 
eat ; and the farmer, when he sees the stack gnawed, and 
scattered around, knee deep, and being wasted, says, 
" There is no need of my saving such little things, they 
are mere trifles ; I have so much that I do not know 
what to do with it." 

The apostle, arguing according to the same principle, 
says, " What is a little waste here ? The rinds and 
crumbs of life, — a little sorrow ; a little loss ; a little 
contempt ; a few persecutions, and afflictions, and troub- 
les, — what are these in the great circle of God's eternal 
world ? There I am rich and honorable ; and what dif- 
ference does it make if here I am the offscourmg of the 
world?" 



" I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
to be content. I know both how to be abased / and I 
know how to abound : everywhere and in all things I am 
instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to 
abound and to suffer need ; I can do all things through 
Christ which strengtheneth me." It is as if Paul had 
said, "I have absolutely subordinated the physical and 
the temporal, and I regard them as but instrumental to 
that which is greater, — to my own inward state. I have 
achieved a complete victory over them. I have over- 
come all things, so that with my mind fixed upon Christ 
and upon the image of Christ that is formed in roe. I 
count nothing to be unendurable which tends to build up 
the manly character of which I have an ideal. And I 
know when I am hungry to be hungry, and not to care ; 
and, on the other hand, when I come into circumstances 



120 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

of abounding luxury, I know how to accept that and not 
be harmed by it. I can sit with the barbarian and eat a 
crust, and be contented and happy; and, on the other 
hand, when swept by a current of prosperity I am taken 
into a rich man's house, I do not sit and pout, and criti- 
cise, and censure, with lordly stoicism. I understand that 
there is good in fruit, and bread, and things like these. 
I love luxury ; and I do not fear the want of it. I can 
go up and I can go down. I can be swept like an ever- 
swinging pendulum, with riches in one tick and poverty 
in the other, with joy resounding in one and sorrow in the 
other ; and I know how to take them both in quick suc- 
cession, and yet to feel that after all such things are mere 
outward accidents to a man's life, and that in the soul is 
where the life itself resides." Was there ever a more 
perfect human nature than Paul's? 



w< Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteous- 
ness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Christ 
was speaking to those who were sawing, and hammering, 
and ploughing, and sowing, and toiling in avevy way, and 
trying to get bread, and clothes, and fuel, and the various 
things that are indispensable to physical comfort. He 
was speaking to just that sort of men who were accus- 
tomed to Bay, " Self-pr< servation is the first law of na- 
ture." Christ said, 4, The highest carries the lowest; the 
greater includes the lesser. Seek first the moral element, 
— the element of truth and righteousness, — and in seek- 
ing that, by the very law of your creation, you cannot 
help taking the other things with you. They will follow 
of necessity." If you take the top first you leave the 
bottom; but if yoa take the bottom first, thai carries the 
top with it. You can lilt the roof and not the founda- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 127 

tion, but you cannot lift the foundation and not the roof. 
And the foundation of human life is rectitude, righteous- 
ness. 



"Whatever men may say, American slavery is not 
Hebrew slavery : it is Roman slavery. We borrowed 
every single one of the elemental principles of our sys- 
tem of slavery from the Roman law, and not from the 
old Hebrew. The fundamental feature of the Hebrew 
system was that the slave was a man, and not a chattel ; 
while the fundamental feature of the Roman system was 
that he was a chattel, and not a man. The essential 
principle of the old Mosaic servitude made it the duty of 
the master to treat his servants as men, and to instruct 
them in his own religion, and in the matters of his own 
household ; while the essential principle of Roman ser- 
vitude allowed the master to treat his servants, to all in- 
tents and purposes, as chattels, goods. 



It seems very strange, — this economy of God, in 
which He thrusts into the door of life a million of His 
children, saying, " Go, live, and find out how to live." 
That is the very point of the Divine economy. The find- 
ing out how to live, you know, is what whets a man 
sharp. That is the ordained law of existence. 

Whole ages may live and die and not know how much 
God has stored up for men through natural laws. We 
do not understand their full power and office. We have 
an idea of what light is, but we have only a blush of a 
knowledge of its entire nature and all its functions. We 
hardly suspect the capacity of solar light. Who would 
have dreamed twenty-five years ago that the sun ^ as a 
portrait painter? Who would have dreamed twenty-five 



128 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

year- ago that every man could possess the portrait of his 
friends ? Who would have dreamed twenty-five years 
ago that the poor soldier, when going to battle, could 
carry with him likenesses of his mother, his sweetheart, 
and his brothers and Bisters, at the cost of a few shillings? 
And yet all these powers of the sun to paint pictures 
which have but lately been disclosed, it has carried in its 
bosom from the beginning of the world. Telescopes 
existed in possibility long before they existed in reality. 
And all that the sun has yet concealed you do not know. 
No man knows what things are still to come to the world 
from the sun. The sun is crammed full of blessings to 
be unfolded when we have found out the things that are 
in it. And all the great natural laws of the £lobe have 
existed from eternity. The fact that they have not de- 
veloped themselves does not militate against the fact that 
they have existed, that God made them, that He has con- 
trolled the earth by them, and that they were designed to 
work out a great history. 



I stand to declare that justice is worth more than the 
cornfields of the continent. I stand to declare that right 
between man and man is worth more than all the freights 
of all the ships that whiten the sea. I stand to declare 
that there is not in the king's crown, nor in the sceptre 
of any monarch, such a power as there is in simple 
mercy between human beings. I stand to declare that 
the secret of national compactness is in national con- 
science, national affection, and national faith in moral 
ideas. And I stand to declare that the period in which 
men scoft'at moral laws and moral truths is a period of 
rank infidelity and utter apostasy. The form of religiop 
may stand in such a period, but it will be worm-eaten i 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 129 

it will be dead ; it will be rotten. And if you want to 
know which way nations are to go to find prosperity, let 
me tell you that every nation that means to be prospered 
must steer straight to the light-house of the universe. 
And what is that? God's heart. Any nation that steers 
for any other thing will run upon shoals and rocks. 



Do not be afraid because the community teems with 
excitement. Silence and death are dreadful. The rush 
of life, the vigor of earnest men, the conflict of realities, 
invigorate, cleanse, and establish the truth. 



The Bible says that everything was made for the sake 
of righteousness. Men generally feel that perhaps it is 
so. They hope it is. They do not exactly see how it 
can be. They do not understand it. They sometimes 
hope and sometimes despond concerning it. Let us look 
a little at it, then. 

We ought to understand beforehand, that a law may 
not seem to be enforced which is absolutely enforced. 

When the ground breaks, and the grape comes up, I 
say, " The law of that plant is to develop grape sugar. 
That which this vine is going to reach after is grape 
sugar. Grape sugar is what it will tend toward all through 
its life." I may interfere with it and stop its growth, or 
maim it, or kill it, or hold it back, or graft upon it some 
other grape that will not develop sweetness. Or, I may 
watch it through the first, the second, and the third pe- 
riods of its growth, and laugh to scorn any man that says 
it is tending to grape sugar. I may be looking for sugar 
in a bowl, sugar in lumps, and, looking at the vine, may 
say, " That 's what you call sugar, is it ? Great sugar ! " 
And yet, after it has grown for four or five years, and 
G* i 



130 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

come to maturity, and developed clusters of fruit, then in 
October, when the berries are ripe, pick one and taste it, 
and see if there is not sugar in it. See if it lias not at 
las! come to sugar. When the vine is growing you can 
stop, pervert, or check the law, but that does not alter 
the fact that the law is to seek grape sugar; that if un- 
impeded it will come to grape sugar ; that it was organ- 
ized to develop grape sugar ; and that you cannot change 
its nature so but that it shall tend in that direction. 

So it is in respect to all the great laws of nature. 
They are so established that they will fulfil their func- 
tions in part. They may be held back, they may be 
masked, they may be perverted, but this docs not alter 
the fact that they are laws. 



The peculiarity of many of the afflictions of life is that 
they take out a man's marrow, they take the strength out 
of him ; he is left collapsed and feeble, and there is noth- 
ing in him to rise up against these troubles. It is quite 
in vain to stimulate such persons by telling them what 
others have suffered, giving the old accustomed comfort, 
telling a man that he is not Buffering more than anybody 
else has Buffered, or that the longest night has a dawning. 
All these truisms of consolation do not help anybody, but 
hurt a great many. There is but one thing under such 
circumstances that ever has consolation. When, by rear 
son of afflictions of any kind, life is paralyzed, and there 
is no sensibility left, if the soul can lift itself up to feel 
that there i- life in God, that there is a vital connection 
between itself and the life of Christ, that though it die, it 
shall live, — the simple thought that Christ lives and so 
shall I, that is an anchor, and that holds a man in this 
extremity and emergency of grief. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 131 

There is tonic in the things that men do not love to 
hear; and there is damnation in the things thai wicked 
men love to hear. Free speech is to a great people 
what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which 
waft away the elements of disease, and bring new ele- 
ments of health. And where free speech is stopped mi- 
asma is bred, and death comes fast. 



I would die myself, cheerfully and easily, before a 
man should be taken out of my hands when I had the 
power to give him liberty, and the hound was after him 
for his blood. I would stand as an altar of expiation 
between slavery and liberty, knowing that, through my 
example, a million men would live. A heroic deed, 
in which one yields up his life for others, is his Calvary. 
It was the hanging of Christ on that hill-top that made it 
the highest mountain on the globe. Let a man do a 
right thing with such earnestness that he counts his life 
of little value, and his example becomes omnipotent. 
Therefore it is said that the blood of the saints is the seed 
of the Church. There is no such seed planted in this 
world as good blood. 



Among the most exquisitely delicate of human experi- 
ences are those which the young child goes through when 
it begins to quarrel with itself because it cannot help 
thinking that the jDarent is imperfect. 



When night is on the deep, when the headlands are 
obscured by the darkness, and when storm is in the air, 
that man who undertakes to steer by looking over the 
side of the ship, over the bow, or over the stern, or by 
looking at the clouds or his own fears, is a fool. There 



132 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

is a silent needle in the binnacle, which points like thi 
6nger of God, telling the mariner which way to steer, and 
enabling him to outride the storm, and reach the harbor 
in safety. And what the compass is to navigation, that is 
moral principle in our affairs. Whatever the issue may 
be. we have but one thing to do, and that is to look where 
the compass of God points, and steer that way. You 
need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot. 

Our children come to us in all the seeming of angels. 
How sweet is the dawn of life ! How is the cradle like 
the opening of the gate of paradise ! And yet, who can 
overhang the unformed, yet shadowy, dreamy beginnings 
of life in the child, and remember that it comes by sinful 
parents into a sinful world, bearing a sinful disposition, 
without feeling that there is a counterbalance to the 
pleasure which it brings ? 



The value of things is measured in the great world by 
their price in market, by their relation to pleasure, by 
their power to win praise, or to gratify and confirm am- 
bition. Worldly men are perfectly sure of that which 
they pan see, and which their handi can handle. Money- 
is a certainty, and pleasure is a certainty. There can 
be no question about the reality of power, place, and 
influence. Houses and lands, ships and stores, goods 
and silver and gold, certainly make men rich 

among men. And these, to worldly natures, are the 
great truths of life. For these they yield up affection, 
refinement, honor, virtue itself. Beyond these, and above 
them, ;ill i^ shadowy and uncertain. For worldly liar- 
vests their sun comes up, their Beasons rule. The only 
providence which they recognize is that which remuner- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 133 

ates industry, economy, frugality, and shrewdness. They 
laugh to scorn the intimation that all these things are but 
the covers that, like hull and husk, drop away so soon 
as the grain is ripe, and are of worth only while they 
serve it. But the whole realm of nature is administered 
for the purpose of evolving and establishing this secret 
and inward life of man. The true history of the world 
is to be found in the relation of the outward world to the 
inward. 



In estimating the dignity of men, the volume and the 
vastness of their being, we are not to measure them by 
the use to which they have put themselves, but by the 
nature of those faculties which God gave them. In-phere 
man in the infinite realm, project him by the mighty pow- 
er of his infinite Father, and then, moving along the ways 
of eternity, — then, when ages have nourished him, and 
the full measure of Divine beneficence hath showered its 
seasons numberless upon him, — then, when stars have 
worn out and weary worlds have ceased their circuity — 
then, when God hath wrought out in full literature of 
wondrous wisdom the whole of that of which earthly life 
was but alphabetic, — then measure him if you can! It 
is from this foreseen and imagined destiny that we bring 
back a light to glorify the cheerless way of rude and uu- 
replenished men. 

The spirit and the letter of Christianity require us 
habitually to regard man in his essentials, and not in his 
accidental relations. " Be ye of the same mind one to- 
ward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to 
men of low estate." To be of the same mind one toward 
another, is to have a feeling of community, a feeling of 



1:34 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

common universal sympathy ; and we are expressly for 
hidden to do what every one in the proportion in which 
he is educated tends to do, — to aspire to the exclusive 
nation of those who have risen in the world bj rea- 
son of the same privileges. They, too, are our brethren, 
who are undeveloped, unpolished ; who perform the me- 
nial offices of life; who live narrowly upon slender means, 
At one blow this command demolishes the customs of the 
world. It is for the Christian to separate men from their 
external, transient relations, and to behold them in those 
greater relations in which all men are alike. Our breth- 
ren are not above us nor below us, but on the same level 
with us. All men are upon one platform and level who 
stand upon the redemption of Christ, who subsist upon 
the mercy and sympathy of God, who reach forward to 
immortality and glory equally and alike. The example of 
Christ ought to be deeply pondered. It stands in marked 
contrast with the habits of all classes of men in His time. 
He does not seem to have thought of men as they Btand 
in societies grouped in classes, separated or united by 
various customs, nor even as they were separated and 
classed by the result of their moral conduct. He BC 
simply and quietly, but always, to have beheld them in 
their original and spiritual relations, to each other, to 
God, and to eternity. He approached men from a differ- 
point of view from that from which others started. 
He looked at them from a law of sympathy not ordinarily 
employed. Ill— example teaches us that our thought is 
not to be. •• Is this man educated? Does he Btand high 
in social lit*'? Is he Btrong? la he acute? Is he skil- 
ful? b he rich?" There is no evidence that these 
questions ever arose in the mind of Christ with reference 
to any human being. lb' looked at men in their higher 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 135 

and holier relations. They were the children of His 
Father. He was elder Brother, and was not ashamed 
to call them brethren. They were destined to the same 
eternity which waited for Him. They were all weak, 
vincible by temptation, in need of help, of instruction, of 
moral stimulus. Their poverty, their rudeness, was the 
accident. Their Diyine nature was the characteristic 
element. 



So^ie of God's noblest sons, I think, will be selected 
from those that know how to take wealth, with all its 
temptations, and maintain godliness therewith. It is 
hard to be a saint standing in a gulden niche. 



When the Bible prescribes Christian graces, it always 
implies loye as the motiye power ; as when we speak of 
rearing haryests it is always implied that there is a soil. 
Without love there is no soil for any Christian grace. If 
there be little of it. the fruit of Christian feeling will be 
poor and scant. If there be much, there will be great 
fruit, and easily grown. All things are easy to loye. It 
tames all passions, inspires all affections, feeds every gen- 
erous sentiment, gives both softness and potency, as its 
needs require, to the will, makes the understanding lu- 
minous, and by making the whole man like God, makes 
it easy for him to be godlike to his fellow-men. 



If earthly analogies may at all guide us, there can be 
no more direct and offensive assault upon God than 
through His children. A man may draw near to my 
dwelling to rail at me ; may assault my reputation ; may 
lie in wait and plot against my secular prosperity ; may 
overreach me in the market, and hinder me upon the 



130 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

roads of life ; may Steal from my Bubetance, and mar my 
enterprise ; but he baa not yet reached me. But let him 

sully the name of my child, and clothe her with ignominy 
before the community, and all the globe, were it a hall 
of fire, would not be hot or vast enough to express the 
indignation I should feel. Through my child he has 
reached me. 

The feeling of justice is terrible when stirred np in as 
in our own behalf; but we never know the full power of 
the feeling until it is stirred in us in behalf of others. I 
have never felt such indignation in my own behalf as I 
have for the weak, for the poor, for the enslaved. When 
great wrongs fall upon them that are ready to perish in 
their helplessness, the soul is like Mount Sinai, and its 
thunderings and lightnings are full terrible! What, 
then, may we suppose to be the indignation of Almighty 
God, who carries in his heart the well-being of every liv- 
ing creature, when He beholds the numberless torments 
and wrongs inflicted upon them ? What must be the 
grandeur of that experience of Love-wrath, (<uvh as 
mothers feel, such as stirs fathers, such as raises lovers 
for their imperilled ones to the fiery zeal of I -. '.hen 

it exists, not in the small circle of a human soul, with ti:- 
ful impulses, hut in the great rounds and d< eps of the 
Divine nature, with calm intensity, with unchangeable 
fervor, and with infinite outreachings of power! 



m Th0U shall love the Lord fin/ God with all thy heart, 
ani> thy neighbor us thyself? That conjunctive particle 

is a rivet that holds these two ft - together insepa- 

rably. Eacb clement is necessary to the completion of the 

other. Lut men turn the feint of Solomon to a reality, 
and cut in two these vital member- of the one life. Thus 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 137 

we have devout men full of religiousness, but caring little 
for their fellow-men ; while over against them are super- 
ficial philanthropists, full of fussy zeal for humanity, with- 
out love for God. or solemn depth of reverential senti- 
ments. 



As a body of men, the Scribes and Pharisees were not 
men of bad morals, more than are many church-members 
of the present day. Neither were they men who lacked 
fidelity to the religious principles in which they were 
educated. The Pharisees were in some respects the 
Puritans of their time. They were that portion of the 
Jews who stood up for reformed Jewish worship. They 
brought back the faith of Moses from its heathen wander- 
ings, and strictly adhered to it. They were the Puritans 
of the Jews. But they preferred the church to the peo- 
ple, the state to the people, the temple to the people, 
their denomination to the people : and their guilt was 
simply this : a contempt for human nature ; utter heart- 
lessness about the common people. And because they 
put burdens upon other men which they would not bear 
themselves ; because they were without humanity, and 
mercy, and sympathy, notwithstanding they had personal 
power, and were faithful to their theologic faith, and were 
the most enlightened of the times in which they lived, 
Christ crushed them with mountains of denunciation. 
There is no such invective as came from the lips of 
Christ Jesus against men who were utterly devoid of 
sympathy toward their fellow-men. 



Do not criticise men's callings; do not measure be- 
tween one and another ; especially disarm yourselves of 
that infernal tendencv to make men discontented in their 



138 ROYAL rnrrns. 

various avocations, by comparing them unfavorably with 
your own. Arrogate nothing to yourselves or to your 
sphere. Avoid carrying yourselves in such a way that 
men shall feci hurt by the shadow which you throw 
across them, by the snuff of pride, or the chill of indif- 
ference. 



u In honor preferring one another." This is contained 
in the twelfth chapter of Romans, and the tenth verse. 
It enjoins an honest desire, springing from unfeigned 
sympathy with others' welfare, to see them put forward 
in life instead of yourself. There be some to whom 
other men's advancement is always a fret and a burden. 
There is a spirit of selfishness which leads envious and 
covetous natures to esteem another's good so much de- 
traction from their own. This is an admirable illustration 
of the nature of benevolence by its converse. A truly 
benevolent mind is made happy at the prospect of anoth- 
er's o;ood. A mind which is made miserable l>v another's 
benefit, is truly malevolent. The father covets nothing 
from the son. She must be a miserable mother that 
is jealous of a daughter. Nay, in the mother's heart 
there is a glow of triumph, suppress it as -he may, as the 
child's beauty rises on the one side to take the place of 
the beauty that is sinking on the other. As one star 
goes below tin 1 horizon, its last rays of light arc cast in 
cheer toward the star that comes from the other. Fa- 
thers' and mothers' hearts do these glorious thing- spon- 
taneously, and teach US how easy to those that love are 
the most recondite and apparently impossible Christian 
graces. 

We hear people say, " What makes you preach doc- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 139 

trinal sermons? Why do you puzzle our heads with 
things that we cannot understand? Why do you not 
preach to us the balmy gospel of love ? Why do you 
not preach about the mild and lovely Saviour ? " There 
are a great manv men that like to hear the sentimentali- 
ty of love, who have not the faintest conception of what 
the effect and the power of it is to be in them. 

I look at the life and disposition of these men who cry 
for the lullaby of love, in the family, in the shop, in all 
departments of their life, and I find that they abhor love 
except on Sunday when I preach on that doctrine of 
God's moral government. But if I were to go to them 
at their places of business, and say, " I understand that 
you take advantage of the circumstances of your work- 
men, and employ them at one quarter of what they ought 
to have, so that they can scarcely subsist on what you 
pay them ; and as you wanted me to preach about love, 
I thought I would come and tell you what the doctrine of 
love is as applied to matters of this kind," they would 
say, " Religion is religion, and business is business. Go 
home, and when I want you to come to my shop and 
preach to me I will let you know." In other words, they 
want sermon love, poetic love, theoretic love, love that 
makes them feel good during the insurance day, — for 
Sunday is the insurance day of the week ! And they 
want me to talk of love because it subdues their fears, 
soothes their hearts, and makes them feel pleasant. But 
there is a way in which they do not want love preached 
even on Sunday, and in the pulpit. They do not want 
it preached as a rod of iron, that says, " I am sovereign 
and supreme ; I stand in you for all ; and, in the name of 
God, I command that every part of your being, — your 
thoughts, your feelings, and your actions, — shall be sub- 



140 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ordinate to me." When men have love presented in 
this way, they do not like it. They like to have it pre- 
sented so as to allow them to have their own way, and so 
as to quiet their conscience in their selfish courses. 



THERE can be nothing more a violation of the spirit of 
the Bible, of the law of God, of the feelings of Christ; 
nothing more an affront and offence before Heaven, than 
feelings of contempt, bitterness, or hatred toward men. 
Even indifference and coldness arc culpable. Sympathy 
with mankind is a universal duty. Christ taught us that 
every man is our neighbor. We are commanded as we 
have opportunity to do good unto all men. There should 
be an abiding disposition of benevolence out of which 
should spring incessant acts of kindness. When the wa- 
ters of an inexhaustible spring have been conveyed 
through pipes to your dwelling, it needs only that you 
should open the vent, and it will gush forth with power 
and copiousness by its own native force. Even when it 
is not flowing, it is pressing and urging itself, and longing 
to flow. Left to itself, night and day it would gush. It 
must be hindered, it must be stopped, but it needs never 
to be solicited. There is a well-spring of love which 
God sinks in the human soul, which throbs without ceas- 
i. . . and strives to give itself forth. From Mich a reser- 
voir we need no slow-descending and heavy-rising bucket, 
we need no forcing-pump, nor instrument of power of 
any eort It is its nature to rise up, to go out. The 
kindness is always there, always ready and waiting. 
Only Opportunity i- needed. 



A man is, as it were, a cask of wine. The figure 
would have been allowable in the days of Christ, — more 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 141 

allowable, perhaps, than it is in our temperance days ! 
A worm gnaws through a stave. It is a small worm, not 
half so large as a knitting-needle. The moment he comes 
to the wine he draws out his head, — -for worms are not 
so fond of wine as men are ! — and a drop follows him, — 
only a drop. Another worm, on the other side of the 
cask, gnaws through another stave. He gets a drop, and 
draws back. On each end there are a dozen or twenty 
other worms eating their way to the wine. Not one of 
them is as big as a mite ; but fifty or sixty of them to- 
gether, if each makes a hole large enough to allow a drop 
to pass through it, are sufficient to cause the waste of all 
the precious contents of the cask. After the lapse of a 
day, a week, a month, or six months, the vintner goes to 
see his treasure ; and behold, the cask sounds empty as 
a hypocrite's heart I There is not a drop in it. And yet 
it looks like a cask of wine. Where have the contents 
gone ? Xot one pint has been surreptitiously drawn by 
the servant that gets blamed, or by the thief that the 
vintner accuses without knowing who he is. The wine 
has all leaked out at holes not large enough to admit of 
the discharge of more than one drop at a time. 

Now, ten million little meannesses, ten million selfish- 
nesses, ten million pettishnesses, ten million waspish dis- 
positions, pierce and puncture the heart, and all its 
graces are drawn out. You are empty because you leak 
all over ! 



One of the most difficult faculties to subdue is that of 
reason. The pride of reason, the vanity of reason, and the 
selfishness of reason, are among the last things in a man 
that are subdued, as well as being among the last things 
that men understand that they ought to subdue. And 



1 [2 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

yet. the pride of reason, in the days of Christ, was an 
object of the most terrible denunciations. And in the 
days of the apostles it was the chief obstacle to the 
id of the Gospel. But men have got, first or last, 
to bring it into subjection to 1 a dispositional ele- 

ment in the soul, before they can be said to have true 

A bountiful mother sits in her house, and says, 
" Mary, go down to that dwelling, and earn- this food. 
Julia, go down to the dwelling on the other side of the 
street, and carry this tea and this sugar. Charles, take 
this money to that man : I promised to pay his rent. 
James, take this clothing down to that woman : she is 
sadly in need of it. Elizabeth, take this book to that 
child." Elizabeth, and Mary, and Julia, and Charles, 
and James, are so many names of the messengers sent on 
these various errands of mercy ; but the mother was back 
of them all, and sent them all. 

Now the soul has its mother. Love, and she says to 
Cons "Here, do such and such things"; to Ven- 

eration, " Here, do such and BUCh things"; and to Rea« 
son, u Here, do such and such things"; and Conscience 
and Veneration and Reason, and all the other faculties, 
run to do as they an 1 bid: but it is the mother. Love, 
that sends them. They all represent her, and perform 
her errands. Though each one walks with a separate 
name, Love sits behind them, and they obey her man- 



Yo€ can imagine thistle-down so light that when you 

ran after it your running motion would drive it away 
from you, and that the more you tried to catch it the 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 143 

Taster it would fly from your grasp. And it should be 
with every man that when he is chased by troubles, they, 
chasing, shall raise him higher and higher. 



It is scarcely reedrbl :o esb:rt men :: =ymr.a:mze 
with those :: their own kind, or with those whom they 
recognize as superior to themselves. Our selfishness 
would inspire it in the one case, and our ambition in the 
other. Men are quite willing from a subordinate rank 
to reach up to and sympathize with men of superior 
stamp. The student will sympathize with the ripe 
scholar; the cadet with the veteran soldier; the clerk 
with the millionnaire. If Humboldt should take us into 
his library, show us the maps which he has consulted, the 
works which he has written, spread before us specimens 
of his cabinet, — rock, earth, plant, — he would not need 
to crave our interest and sympathy. Among men of our 
own rank, who dress as we dress, who spread their board 
as we spread ours, who occupy themselves with the very 
things which engage our time and attention, we find no 
difficulty of sympathy. Are we merchants ? We honor 
a man that can drive a smart bargain, because we do 
such tilings ourselves, — or try to do them. If one un- 
derstands how to build a splendid house ; how to invest 
money to a good advantage; how to get rich by dealing 
in stocks, or by wide yet circumspect enterprise; how to 
enter into the hurly-burly of life, and make his way 
through all difficulties by the force of will and wisdom. — 
if one is what we are ambitious to become, if we are not 
like him already, we find it easy to sympathize with him. 
But when at sundown the sweated laborer comes trudg- 
ing weary from the field ; when the blacksmith, smouched 
and grimed, stands cooling himself in the cloor while we 



144 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

drive past ; when the subterranean collier emerges into oui 

sphere ; when men forever stooping to the spado, hack- 
bent, in laying stone, delving, groping, toiling men, whose 
extreme necessities have consumed all their hours with 
hard work, leaving little leisure, and no disposition fur 
reading and improvement, — when this great army, I -ay, 
that immensely populates (he world, and represents nine- 
tenths of the whole race, are brought before us, how sel- 
dom do we find working in us the quick response of 
relationship ! We thank God and bless ourselves that our 
lot was not like theirs. AVhere there is one man engaged 
in the things in which you take interest, there are a 
million of blood-bought men, eternal spirits, that are 
groping, yearning, longing, in the midst of scenes far 
below you. And what is the command of God to you 
with reference to these uncounted and innumerable ones? 
"Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low 
estate. Honor all men." 



"The Sabbath was made for max, and not 
MAN for THE Sabbath ! " That sentence is passed 
upon every usage, custom, law, government, church, or 
institution. Man is higher than them all. Not one of 
them but may be changed, broken, or put away, if the 
good of any man require it. Only, it must he his higher 
!. his virtue, his manhood, his purity and truth, his 
life and progress, and not his mere capricious material 

interests. 



Do you suppose that religion is like a bird in a. cage, 
and that you can lock it up in the church, and that tin; 
keeper will take care of it, and feed it, and have it ready 
to sing for you whenever you choose to come here and 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 145 

listen to it? Is that your idea of religion? Very well, 
then : your Bible and mine are different. We read dif- 
ferent translations ! 



It h not selfishness in themselves, but selfishness in 
others, that men hate. Every man wants his wife, his 
children and his neighbors to love him supremely. Ev- 
erybody thinks that everybody else ought to keep their 
temper. He is the only one that has a right to indulge 
in ill-temper. Every man draws the reins tight in regard 
to other people, but allows himself the widest latitude. 



I would much rather fight pride than vanity, because 
pride has a stand-up way of fighting. You know where 
it is. It throws its black shadow on you, and you are 
not at a loss where to strike. But vanity is that delu- 
sive, that insectiferous, that multiplied feeling, and men 
that fight vanities are like men that fight midges and 
butterflies. It is easier to chase them than to hit them. 



Who ever passed the tomb of Abelard and Heloise in 
the ground of Pere la Chaise without a heart-swell ? 
There is no deep love which has not in it an element of 
solemnity. It moves through the soul as if it were an 
inspiration of God, and carries with it something of the 
awe and shadow of eternity. 



Never was the conflict of a soul, lifted by yearnings 
and aspirations on one side, and pulled down by sinful 
impulses and habits on the other, better described than 
in the seventh chapter of Romans. There is a solemn 
tenderness in it that leads men to love it, as one loves to 
hear the minor chords of music. It is not the voice of 
7 J 



146 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

one that declaims, or of one raging. It is .-ad, deep, sol- 
emn. It is the Miserere of the New Testament I have 

seen, in the hill country, a little stream gathering from 
the springs, and holding its way with deepening water, 
until it enters a gorge. Dark evergreen trees make the 
place gloomy. Rocks and fallen timber hinder the 
stream. It falls headlong upon some stone, and is 
dashed to spray ; it trickles back to a channel, only to be 
caught and whirled in a dark pool; and boiling out of 
that, it shoots now to the right, still embroiled, and now 
to the left, but whether forward or sideways, always hin- 
dered, broken, and made to cry out and roar by its plun- 
ges and innumerable interruptions. No flowers edge it. 
Its way is too sunless for beauty. But when, at length, 
far down, it sees beyond a glimpse of field and meadow, 
it takes cheer, and speeds on, until at length the broad 
sunshine strikes it, its cascades are fewer, its course even- 
er, and at length beneath bending grasses, and simple 
flowers, and ruffling shrubs, and over smooth shining 
sand, it steals tranquilly on, undisturbed, beautiful, and 
the cause of beauty on either bank. 

Such is the seventh chapter of Romans, — the soul in 
the cleft rocks of the mountain gorge ; and Buch the eighth 
Chapter of Romans, — the soul flowing deep in the fair 
fields of heavenly joy. The experience of this seventh 
chapter may often have been as deep and as wonderful in 
the souls of men as in that of the Apostle ; but the expres- 
sion of it has never been equal to his. 



I DO not know of anything that vanity does not dese- 
crate. I think the probe would scarcely reveal more 
hideous results in the lusts themselves than in vanity. 
Who would dare to say that among those whom they 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 1JJ 

know there are not those whose sickness is a kind of ob- 
lation to vanity; apart of whose capital is how much 
they sutler : and who. if you were to deny that they 
sutler more than anybody else ever did suffer, would feel 
that you were despoiling them of their legitimate tro- 
phies ? Who would dare to say that in the circle of 
their acquaintance there are not those whose bereave- 
ments are oblations to vanity ; who take a vain pleasure 
in being the objects of the attention of the neighborhood 
for the hour, in seeing the preparations for the funeral, 
in numbering the carriages, and in witnessing the sym- 
pathy that is excited for them throughout the commu- 
nity ? Who would dare to say that there might not be 
cases in which, if it were their own child, there would be 
a mingling of this heathenish feeling with their grief? 
I tell you, if you sit down and look at your life in its real- 
ity, you will rind that there is not much poetry in it. The 
poetry is given to clothe life so that it will not look as 
hideous as it reallv is. 



Ir a man is living a true Christian life, and says of 
himself. " I was convinced of my sinfulness in this sud- 
den and most miraculous way/' there is no reason why 
you should not believe him. But if he should say to 
another man who has not had such an experience, but 
who is living a godly life. •'• You can scarcely have been 
truly converted, because you had no such experience," 
I would say to him. •• You have no right to tyrannize by 
your experience over another man. Your experience 
may have been genuine : but that is no reason why this 
other man's experience was not genuine, though it was 
different from yours/' 

We have no right to forget God's sovereignty, and 



148 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Emit Him, or our expectations, to this one way. Christ 
ered Jerusalem by many gates, — not by one only. 
Ilie human heart has mor _ 3 than Jerusalem had; 
ind God enters it by that gate which. In view of the age 
ind circumstances and condition of the person, it Beems 
jo Him wisest to enter l>v. 



It is better that a man should be convicted of sin ter- 
dbly than that he sliould be lost; but a man ought to he 

ishamed to be obliged to be swirled and Bweltered in 
aeart and conscience before he will abandon that which 
€ evJ, and take hold of that which is good. When a 
nan it in the wrong, how little it takes to make him 
•epent and go to the right, indicates how manly he i-. 
vVhen 4 man is in the wrong, how much it takes to make 
jim repent aaa go toward the right, indicates how manly 
i ; -, It is ehaiaeteristic of a noble nature, that, the mo- 
Ittftt I:e has clone an injustice to a neighbor, and he 
■t, ho says, u I must put that man right." Why? For 
his own sake ? For the sak<- of his own reputation ? Na 
He says, M There is something in my own man]: 
which tells me that, having wronged that man. I must 
right him*'; and he make- haste, ho leaps with | 

lo it. A noble nature i- always anxious, if he has 
done wrong anywhere, to have it made known to him; 
and when it is made known to him, he is restless day and 
night till the wrong is made- right 



Many persons are waiting for conviction. They are 
desirous of becoming Christians, but they think they have 

no right to discharge Christian duties until they have 
gone through certain appointed steps of conviction. They 

wish to be Christians, and to feci like a Christian, before 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 149 

they live like a Christian. Is there a man who says. "If 
I had been convicted and converted, and was a Cnristian, • 
I would live like a Christian ? M Begin to live like a 
Christian ! that is more important than any preliminary 
steps you could take. Do you think you would pray if 
you were a Christian ? Pray now ! Do you think you 
would instruct your children if you were a Christian ? 
Instruct them now ! The very way to become a Christian 
is to do Christian duty. Would you praise God if you 
were a Christian ? Praise Him now, then ! Do you 
think you would talk to men of salvation if you were a 
Christian ? Talk to men of salvation now ! The doing 
of these things will make you a Christian. Being a 
Christian is no mysterious thing. If you would feel like 
a Christian, act like one. — live like one. The way to 
be a Christian is to do as the scholar does. — go to study- 
ing ; as the traveller does. — start on the journey ; as the 
workman does. — take hold and work ; as the farmer 
does. — put in the spade and the plough. The way to 
be a Christian is to let alone the thing that is wrong, and 
take hold of the thing that is right. Go and pray for 
faith. If you gain but little, do not be discouraged; you 
will gain more next time. Watch for it. Strive for it, 
Make up your mind in the beginning that you are but a 
child in these things. Say. " I am a beginner, and am 
ignorant ; but I desire to learn, and I never will leave off 
my efforts to become more and more enlightened. By 
prayer and reading I will seek to know my duty ; and so 
far as I know it. I will endeavor to perform it." If you 
can say this truthfully, you need not be troubled about 
the evidences of your Christianity; they will take care 
of themselves. Only let there be spring in the air, and 
there will be crocuses under the fence, and violets in the 



150 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

garden ; and let the Sun of righteousness shine on the 
willing soul, and ere long it will blossom with Christian 
graces. And these will be the best evidence that yon 
have been convicted, and are a Christian. And in all 
your Christian career, never think of getting beyond that 
state in which you will be under conviction of sin. 



There are many who think they are Christians be- 

Sause they have had a wonderful conviction : not because 
their lives are so good, not because they have Bach a 
sensitive conscience, not because they perform their duty 
as Christians with such fidelity ; but because they had a 
wonderful conviction. If you sit down to talk with them, 
they always go back to the time when they passed 
through the Red Sea in coming out of Egypt. That on 
which they base their hopes is the circumstance that 
once they were slaves to the Egyptians, that God sent 
Moses to bring them forth, that when pursued by the 
thundering Egyptians God opened a clean path in the -ea 
through which they crossed to the other side, and that, 
like the Israelites, the)' wandered folly years in the des- 
ert afterwards ! Now, where a man's only faith i< 1 
upon the fact that he felt bad once, yon may be sure that 
he will act bad all the rest of his life. A man is g 1 
. under tic influence of God, he is living a right- 
a life. What your conviction was is of no account at 
all ; it is the fruit of to-day that is of importance. 



I SUPPOSE there never was an exactly pure and natu- 
ral experience of mind in the world. E 

y inspiration of genius, ption oft! 

y rapture of the poet, every impulse of >r, is 

imperfect, Bprings from an imperfect sourdfe, arises from an 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 151 

unbalanced state. Therefore, I do not undertake to say 
of any conviction of sin, that the circumstances attending 
it were normal and necessary. But I do undertake to 
say that men are suddenly overtaken by a sense of their 
personal sinfulness, which almost absorbs their life from 
its ordinary channels, which pervades them, which fills 
them, which controls them, so that they sit as a man un- 
der black clouds beneath Sinai, and pass out of that state 
with triumph, up into a life of certainty and joy, their 
after-life, consistent in divine holiness to the end, giving 
witness that the first experience had in it benefit and 
propriety. 

Wren a man organizes purely for this world, his 
every step away from the life and spring of youth will be 
apt to be a step away from enjoyment, and his old age 
can scarcely be other than barren and miserable. 

Ordinarily rivers run small at the beginning, grow 
broader and broader as they proceed, and become widest 
and deepest at the point where they enter the sea. It is 
such rivers that the Christian's life is like. But the life 
of the mere worldly man is like those rivers in Southern 
Africa which, proceeding from mountain freshets, are 
broad and deep at the beginning, and grow narrower and 
more shallow as they advance. They waste themselves 
by soaking into the sands, and at last they die out entire- 
ly. The farther they run, the less there is of them. 



Men are afraid of extremes. They think the " golden 
mean," as it is called, — and oftentimes it is mean enough, 
— is the safest. It may be where the question is one of 
mere expediency, where no moral principle is involved. 
But where it is a mean that stands between right and 



152 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

wrong, where it is a mean that stands between honov 
and dishonor, where it ifl a mean that stands between 
courage and cowardice, where it is a mean that stands 
between Belfishness and benevolence, where it is a mean 
that wants the benefits of both sides without the responsi- 
bility of either, then it is a point of iinmanliness. Zero 
begins half way between right and wrong; and when a 
man is enthroned on zero in moral things, you may un- 
derstand about where he is. lie is in that point in which 
— changing the figure — God is pleased to say to him, 
" Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I 
will spew thee out. of my mouth." So much for a man's 
popularity in heaven who takes the "golden mean" be- 
tween moral extremes ! 



It is a small thing for that fool to walk across a cable 
with the roar of Niagara under him. carrying some booby 
like himself on his back, though ten thousand other fools 
go to gape and stare at him. But for a man to walk 
across the thread of daily life, carrying, not another fool, 
but a soul with immortality in every faculty, potent, won- 
derful in scope and power and susceptibility, so as to 
keep it in balance, is not a small thing. 



Since the earliest periods of which we have record, 
tic Btaple sceptici-m has arisen from the apparent unreg- 

ulation of human affairs. Men have doubted whither 
there were an observant God; whether lie cared to 
mak<' distinction between virtue and vice in this life; 
whether by law and its inherent penalty, or by an active 
interposition of His hand, He rewarded virtue and pun- 

ished rice. 

This arises from a total misconception of the relations 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 153 

of this world to its work. This is not God's show-room, 
but His workshop. It is not at all surprising that 
rudeness and dust and confusion should prevail here. 
If one should go to a watchmaker's, and look upon an 
exquisite watch, should know the regularity of its pulsa- 
tions, the exquisite framework and adjustment of every 
part, the completeness and finish of the whole instrument, 
would he be wise in saying, " The shop where this was 
made must be rarely clean and exquisitely adjusted ?" 
Let him go back and search for its beginnings ; let him 
see its beginnings ; let him see the gold smelting ; let 
him listen to the clatter of hammers and files ; let him 
see the confusion of much-used tools, — the furnace, the 
bellows, the vice, the anvil, — and learn that infinite 
apparent confusions may conspire together to the produc- 
tion of perfect symmetries. While it was being made, 
the wheels of the chronometer were separated ; were in 
different degrees of finish ; were formed even in different 
shops ; were brought together one by one, and fitted by 
manifold plyings. And when each part had found its 
place, the most difficult labor was yet to be done. Its 
regulation and its adjustment for perfect time-keeping 
are more difficult than the mere construction of its parts. 
Thrust into an oven, it was left to throb in high degrees 
of heat. Then, with sudden change, plunged into ice, it 
was demanded of it with equal beats to measure time in 
this opposite condition. Nor will the adjustment be com- 
plete and the regulation perfect, until the instrument 
bears itself substantially even and alike under all tem- 
peratures, in all positions, and in all conceivable circum- 
stances. How little would one, inexpert and ignorant, 
looking upon the place where this watch-construction 
proceeded, conceive of the admirable fitness of the instru- 
7* 



154 ROYAL TRUT 

mentalities to the work I . •■! How simple and 

9h is he who, _ without having seen 

the shop, imagines that so much y as most n 

imply regulated harmony. cleanlint 9, ,ty. in the in- 

strumentation ! 

The very idea of this life is that it is a place in which 
to prepare men for | — in a lift- to come. Per- 

fectness in the individual, still less per: 
is no part, apparently, of the Divine economy of this 
world. The Great Artificer, we may hope, discerns, in 
the conflict of passions, in the rudeness of violence, in the 
attritions and raspings of men; in hope, in de-pair, in 
love, in hate ; in joy, in sorrow : in yearnings, in disap- 
pointments ; in bafflings. in victories; — but so many 
influence- which, working slowlv. with seeming discon- 
ion, and without obvious results here, are, neverthe- 
. shaping innumerable souls, to revolve in eternal 
harmony and regularity in that sphere above all misrule, 
above all rudeness and imperfection, where God's heart 
beat- time for the universe, and every living creature 
throbs sympathetic. 

It is with men a- it i- with machinery. Everybody 

that anything about machinery, knows that it 

when it i to stand still, than when 

it is worked, if it is worked right. If a watch s: 
still a year, i: wean out as much as it would in run- 
ning properly tw & But where machin 
without oil, and Bqueal 
out speedily. Now anxiety is in human life just v. 

_ are in m thai is not 

oiled. In life trust is the oil I in God i< that 

which lubricates lite. - e de- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 155 

velop the things we ought to have, and cb it in such a 
way that they bring pleasure with them. 

It is no small thing for a man to have a rule in his 
mind by which to judge every part of his life, even 
though every part of his life may not always conform 
to that rule. 

If you have stood by the pilot of a ship, and watched 
him as he steered it, you know that such is the build of 
the ship, such is its equipoise, and such is the unequal 
motion given to it by the waves and winds, that no man 
can hold it exactly to its course. No sooner is it brought 
into steering line than it is carried to the right or to the 
left. One minute it is too far inland. The next minute 
it is too far in the opposite direction. The pilot is 
obliged to be constantly turning the wheel to meet the 
various forces that oppose him. The steering of a ship 
is marked by a succession of imperceptible zigzags ; a 
man's life certainly is, whether a ship's steering is or 
not; but where the voyage is as wide as the breast of 
the Atlantic, where it is the whole of our earthly exist- 
ence, and where a man has a definite purpose which 
constitutes his steering line, and he comes to that in the 
end, it amounts to a straight voyage. 

We see the same thing demonstrated in daily life. 
We see supreme purposes which men have formed run- 
ning through their whole career in this world. A voung 
man means to be a civil engineer. That is the thing to 
which his mind is made up : not his father's mind, per- 
haps, but his. He feels his adaptation to that calling, 
and his drawings toward it. He is young, forgetful, in- 
experienced, accessible to youthful sympathies, and is 
frequently drawn aside from Ifis life purpose. To-day he 



L>G ROYAL TRUTHS. 

attends a picnic. Next week he devotes a day to some 
other excursion. Occasionally he loses a day in conse- 
quence of fatigue caused by overaction. Thus there is a 
link knocked out of the chain of this week, and a link 
knocked out of the chain of that week. And in the 
course of the summer he takes a whole week, or a fort- 
night, out of that purpose. Yet, there is the thing in his 
mind, whether he sleeps or wakes. If you had asked 
him a month ago what he meant to be in life, he would 
have replied, U I mean to be a civil engineer." And if 
you ask him to-day what has been the tendency of his 
life, he will say, " I have been preparing myself to be a 
civil engineer." If he waits and does nothing, the reason 
is that he wants an opportunity to carry out his purpose. 
That purpose governs his course, and he will not engage 
in anything that would conflict with it. 

Now, this sovereign purpose of a man to live for cer- 
tain great moral principles and moral ends; this sover- 
eign purpose of a man to live for the eternal world ; this 
realization by a man of God's existence and God's gov- 
ernment ; this determination of a man to be governed by 
God's law, — this is itself a settling of the soul in a way 
that lays the foundation for satisfaction and \nv peace. 
It gives singleness, simplicity, sincerity, — for these three 
words cluster around the Same central idea. It brings 
the whole life to aim at one thing; it brings the whole 
mind under one government : and however much the 
separate part- may rebel, it yet holds a man to one direc- 
tion, and reduces all things to simple tests of right or 
wrong by a given and acknowledged Btandard; but ai 
advances, victories are gained, education ripens into 
fixed habits, the very conflict ceases, and the whole l*)dy 
is full of light I 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 157 

When we come in contact with men we do not know 
what they leave upon us. I ha^e noticed that when spi- 
ders spin their webs in bushes they leave none that you 
can see at midday. But the next day the dew that has 
lodged upon them reveals them, and then you can see 
that the bushes were covered with them. And the influ- 
ences which men exert upon you, you cannot see when 
you receive them. It is only when they are subse- 
quently revealed in your life that you become aware 
of them. 



I think that a man who is attempting to live a Chris- 
tian life on one side, and a worldly life on the other, is 
like a sick man who has made up his mind that what the 
doctor says is all folly, and that, since he does not like 
the medicine and regimen, he will do that which is most 
agreeable to him. When the nurse and physician are 
out, he steals into the pantry, and loads his stomach with 
things aggravating to his disease. He deceives every- 
body but Nature ; Nature is never deceived. You may 
call food what you please, but if it is contrary to the law 
of digestion, when the stomach takes it, Nature knows it. 
You may call your course in life what you please, but 
when your conscience takes it, and its effects are evolved> 
its real character is disclosed. 



Some feel religious teaching because it falls upon a 
aertain sort of susceptibility ; but they are only suscepti- 
ble, not soft. There are people who have ripples, but 
never waves ; who have surface feelings, but never 
depths of feeling. They never have deep convictions 
or deep emotions ; yet they are always shimmering and 
moving. There are persons that are like farms that have 



1.33 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

only had surface-ploughing three or four inches deep, un- 
der which 18 a hard pan through which neither root nor 
moisture can break, BO that what is planted thereon has 
a sprinkling growth, and a meagre existence. 



A max goes into a community that has been under 
Puritan teaching tor many years, and teaches what he 
conceives to be a better doctrine. The people there are 
living good lives, and after he has been among them a 
short time, he says, " See the effect of my doctrine." It 
is not the effect of his doctrine. The^e people were in- 
doctrinated in right views before he came among them. 
And righteousness is as hereditary as vice, and godly 
men transmit moral qualities to their children and their 
children's children. Therefore the character and ten- 
dency of a new doctrine cannot be determined from what 
can be seen of its effects within a simile man's lifetime. 



Though you have a straight line of apostolic succes- 
sors, if your work is poor, you are not in the line of 

ioD ; and if your church does not make full-grown 
men, it is not. I do not care anything about the line 
succession of my grapes, if my vineyard brings forth 
better wine than your vineyard doe-. You may say that 
yours came from those that Noah planted ; but they are 
not so good as mine after all. For by their fruit ye 
shall know them. And the test of all church- -. a- of all 
orthodoxies, and all doctrines, and all usages, and all 
. is this: What i- their effect upon the gen 
orations of men ? 



No princely fortune could be Buch a boon to a man 
a- a disposition or grace which should lead him to ?ay, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 159 

" God is my Father ; I am heir with Christ of an eter- 
nal inheritance ; and I cannot be poor, I cannot be for- 
saken." How valiant a man is who can say that ! 



What is the essential idea of Puritanism ? It is this : 
God, everlasting, sovereign, immutable, eternal ; God, 
glorious in holiness, and fearful in praises ; God, the 
whole heaven full of Him ; God, the whole earth full of 
Him ; God in the past and God in the abounding ages of 
the future ; God the universal Father, and man, God's 
child ! O, the dignity, the power, the glory, the sacred- 
ness that there is in every individual man's life, the mo- 
ment you fill the heavens, the earth, and all time, full 
of God, and take every single living creature, and 
say, " Each creature born is God's child ! " How it 
makes every man more massive than kingdoms ! How it 
makes every man's conscience more authoritative ! What 
breadth it gives to the conception of the individual ! That 
is the reason why Puritanism always goes toward liberty. 
In Switzerland it did ; in the land of the Huguenots it 
did ; in old Scotland it did ; in New England it did. 



There has been a great deal of dispute as to whether 
men should say their prayers extemporaneously, or pre- 
compose them, and read them. That question is alto- 
gether secondary. It makes no difference whether the 
service is of one shape or another shape. The question 
is, What is the spirit in which it is administered ? Is it 
for the sake of supplying men, or for the sake of teaching 
men to supply themselves ? Is it for the sake of bringing 
men's hearts into bondage to forms and ceremonies, or for 
the sake of organizing independency in the hearts of 
men ? Many churches are like conservatories^ in which 



100 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

the members are like a flower in a flower-pot There it 
is in the flower-pot, and it cannot get out. And little 
sticks are put down beside it to keep it in a particular 
position. And even- branch that attempts to go beyond 
a given point is instantly -nipped off, in order that the 
flower may assume an ideal shape. And the member! 
of many churches are like geraniums trained for show, 
tied up, and constrained in root and branch and Btem. 
There are thousands of people in churches that Bit around 
in their respective rows, and take whatever nourishment 
is dealt out to them, and grow in just the shape that is 
prescribed for them by those that have them in charge, 
and have no voice in determining what kind of a struct- 
ure shall be made of them. 



We speak of the crucifixion of our passions. In one 
sense, so far as a sinful indulgence of them is concerned, 
they are to be crucified and slain ; but in no other sense 
are they to be slain. We are to use them so that there 
will be no need of crucifying them. For there is not one 
primary desire or appetite in the human system that was 
put there to be taken out again. Everything that is in 
a man was put in him for no other reason than because 
it was necessary to the symmetry of the whole ; and the 
attempt to crucify any of our normal, lawful desires, is an 
attempt to mutilate God's perfect work. Wo have a 
right to every one of our appetites and pas-ions; and 
that, not for suppression, hut for use, so that we use thorn 
in subordination to the higher moral sentiments and af- 
fect io 



Tin: world is full of imbecile men whose parent-' pride 
or vanity was such that they would not allow them to da 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 161 

the things which they were fitted to do, and who try to 
do what they never had a function for. Their life is one 
long failure, and they are forever complaining because 
life is so misadjusted. 

There are many children that are brought up with 
care and assiduity, who, when they are deprived of the 
sustaining influences of their parent-, seem bankrupted , 
and, on the other hand, there are many children that are 
brought up without any care or foresight, who make 
splendid men. And people say, " There is no use of 
family government." The- first example does not prove 
that family government tends to the destruction of chil- 
dren. The parents took care of their children, and would 
not let them take care of themselves. They did not give 
them the idea that they could take care of themselves. 
They did not teach them not to need to be taken care of. 
They would not let them stand alone. They were afraid 
that if they put them on their feet they would run away, 
and so they did not put them on their feet. They were 
afraid that if they allowed them to use their hands they 
would do mischief, and so they kept them tied. The 
consequence was that when they were eighteen, or nine- 
teen, or twenty years of age, — just at that critical period 
when reaction is most apt to come ; just at that critical 
period when the child passes from boyhood to manhood ; 
just at that critical period when the parent throws the 
child on his own responsibility, — the consequence was 
that then these children did not know how to stand, or 
walk, or take care of themselves, and they went to the 
devil ! And people said, " That is what comes of Chris- 
tian teaching. That is the way the children of religious 
parents turn out." 



102 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

On the other hand, how was it in the other case, in 
which people seemed to neglect their children entirely, 
ami in which, notwithstanding this, the children turned 
out well? The parents neglected the children in some 
things, but in Borne things they conformed to God's funda- 
mental law of letting every man take care of himself to 
the extent of his ability. The influence of the n< _ 

therefore superficial. The parents were practising 
self-reliance, and the children, gaining confidence from 
their example, practised it also. The consequence was 
that the children, when the parents died, or when they 
went out from under the parental roof, knew how to 
stand on their own root, and were saved. 



Do not go back to monkish days, and take on ascetic 
ideas of religion. If you will go back, go back to the 
Jewish times, where men worshipped largely in festivities; 
where, when they came to the temple, they came with 
such outbursts of pleasure, such uproarious rejoicings, 
that the writers who described the tumult which pre- 
vailed on such occasions, spoke of it as the sound of 
mighty thunderings, and the voice of many waters. The 
-I re cheerful. They had not much mirth, but they 

had great hilarity. The Old Testament is full of cl 
fulness, of buoyancy, and commands to it. 



Many persons suppose that when a man becomes con- 
verted, he of ne© - - lemn. They suppose 
that a Christian IS like a man who is looking in a dark 
pit all the time. They think that there must have been 
a mistake made in the creation of the mind. But God, 
when lie. in infinite creative wisdom, looked round about 
and - the trait- for the human BOul, Salient, mag- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 163 

nificent among them He put imagination, which is in the 
mind what a diamond is upon the bosom, sparkling and 
throwing its light pon every side. And when He put 
imagination there, He meant that it should sparkle. 
And wit, with its concomitants of humor, mirth, and 
conviviality in intellectual things, was likewise placed in 
the mind by Divine intention; as was also hope. And 
these three traits — hope, wit, and imagination — go to 
constitute what we call the buoyant temperament. But it 
is supposed by many that while a man is a worldling, 
while he makes no profession of religion, he may laugh, 
and carry himself gayly, and sparkle in this direction and 
in that, and indulge in his quips and witty sayings, and be 
a radiant, entertaining man ; but that when he becomes 
convicted of sin, and converted, he must put a snuffer 
over the imagination, shut the door on mirthfulness, and 
repress all those elements which give hilarity or gayety to 
life. They think that when a man becomes a Christian, 
he must be constantly under the influence of veneration 
and of awe, and that he must think of nothing but the 
solemnity of the cause that he has espoused, and of his 
awful responsibility before God. 

Now, God wants the whole soul. If He had not 
wanted your wit, He would not have put it into you. 
If He had not wanted your imagination, He would not 
have put that into you. If He had wanted no stars in 
the firmament, no stars would have been there. If there 
is a flower in the world, God wants that flower. If there 
is a tree on the earth, He wants that tree. And if there 
is a trait in the human mind, He wants that trait. You 
may abuse it ; you may employ it in infelicitous ways ; 
but that has to do with the question of regulation and ed- 
ucation. I aver that the perfect man is the man that has 



1»J4 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

developed all the radiant, joy-breeding, and joy-dispera* 
ing traits of his nature. It is a Bhame to let these traits 
go to the hands of the adversaries, and exclude them 
from Christianity. 



" Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these." I know he never was; nor has anybody 
else ever been ; nor will anybody ever he. I can show 

one apple-tree that puts to shame all the men aim women 

that have attempted to dress since the world began. 



A man has lived in a cellar, where he has been a poor, 
dungeoned creature, striving to live a life which was pro- 
longed death itself. At last, he goes up one story ; and 
then one story higher; and then one story higher; and 
he continues to go up little by little, till by and by it 
seems to him that there must be some place where it is 
lighter. He keeps on exploring and going up for a time 
longer, and finally reaches the roof. There he beholds 
the heavens over his head, and the sun in the east, and 
lie is entranced with amazement by the glory of 
things which Burround him. And yet, every Bingle day 
during his existence, and for countless 
have hung above the earth, tin- sun has >h<>ur forth in 
splendor, and the other creations which astonish hi- vision 
have been beheld by men. For forty year- he has been in 
the cellar, and now that he has come up wh< D -<-e 

them, it Beems to him that they have now appeared for 
tip- first time, because he sees them for the first time. 

i it i- with the disclosures of the love of God in 
Chirst Jesus t » Christians. They think that the time 
when they first realize that love, i< the time when it is 
first shed upon them. But as God pour-, abroad infinite 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 165 

breadths of His Being without an eye except His own to 

>ld them, so He spreads over our heads an unknown, 
an unmeasured, and an immeasurable love, waiting for 
our recognition, but in nowise depending upon it. I 
know of nothing that is calculated to give more hope to 

the Christian in the midst of his discouragements, than 
this feeling, — namely. "I am not to be saved because I 

am so good, but because God is so <jood." 



It is argued by some that men will take advantage of 

the love of God. Xo. not men. You must get some oth- 
er name for those lazar-house creatures that are capable 

of doing that. 

If I were greatly in want of money, and I went for 
aid to an old, usurious, miserly man. who hated to give, 
and only gave for a consideration, and scolded when he 
gave. I do not know but I should take a little comfort in 
pestering' him. I suppose there is a little relish of tor- 
ment which ^yery one feAi in dealing with such a man. 
I presume I should enjoy going to him and getting out of 
him all I could. But it' I went for aid to a man of a kind 
and generous nature, the case would be different. I get 
into trouble, and go to such a man. when he meets me 
with a face bathed in smiles, and says, "You have come 
again to give me the pleasure of assi-ting you." I say, 
*• I have liabilities to the amount of ten pounds, which I 
am unable to meet." "What! is that all?'" he exclaims. 
and gives me twenty. I attempt to express my obliga- 
tions to him, when he says. "Not a: all. — not at all"; 
and shoves me out of his house. As I start to go away, 
he says, "I shall see you again; I shall get another 
chance at you : I shall have more pleasure nut of you ! " 
l)v and by I 20 to him again, hanging my head, when his 



166 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

first words to me are, " Ah ! your pocket is empty and 
your head is down. Come in! come in! You cannot 
get away so easily." And again he gives me the money 
I need. At length I get into deeper trouble. Sickness 
enters my family, and my means run out. In my distress 
I go to him once more. The moment he sees me, he 
says, "What! spent your money so soon? I declare, I 
do not know but I shall have to make you my son. I 
must look after your affairs. I see you cannot attend to 
them yourself." He sweeps away my debts, and supplies 
my present wants, and urges me to call on him whenever 
1 find myself pressed for means. Now suppose I say, 
when I get by myself, " This old fellow is so kind and 
good that I can practise on him, and I w T ill take advan- 
tage of his kindness and goodness" what ouixht I to 
be baptized ? Toad ? snake ? No, I will not so slander 
savage animals ! I ought to be baptized devil ! 



THERE is something unspeakably affecting to me in the 
thought of — what may I call it? — the solitude of Di- 
vine love for men, and its patient continuance in God 
without consciousness on our part There is something 
sweet in interpreting the nature of God from the family. 
Now, who can tell the sum of the thoughts which the 
mother bestOWS On the child? All through his infancy 
he is scarcely out of her mind. She watches him as he 
sleeps in the cradle. She wakes at night to go ami B06 
if all is sale iu the room where he is. All day long, as 
he plays, her eye- are upon him, to Bee that no harm 
COmeS to him. And all through his boyhood her love 

and care Burround him. And yet he is unconscious of 
most ot" her solicitude concerning him. He knows that 

she loves him, hut ' a only feels the pulsations of her 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 167 

love once in a while. I think we never know the lov* 
of the parent for the child till we become parents. I 
think that when we first bend over our own cradle God 
throw r s back the temple door, and reveals to us the sa- 
credness and mystery of a father's and a mother's love to 
us. And I think that in later years, when they have 
gone from us, there is always a certain sorrow that we 
cannot tell them that we have found it out. I think that 
one of the deepest experiences of a noble nature in refer- 
ence to loved ones that have passed beyond this world, is 
the thought of what he might have been to them, and 
what he might have done for them, if he had known, 
while they w^ere living, what he has learned since they 
died. 

Now, when I think of the love of Christ, and the love 
of God in Christ, overhanging my life ; when I think of 
the long period during which I had no conception of that 
love ; when I think of the long period during which I 
resisted and struggled against it ; when I think that 
luring these long periods God, unchanged and unchange- 
able, brooded over me and yearned for me without my 
knowing it, — when I think of these things, they are in- 
expressibly affecting to me. And, moreover, they bring 
the nature of God into such reality and form that I feel 
that I can comprehend Him and worship Him. 

Not only does God think of us constantly, and love us 
steadfastly, but there is a healing, curative nature forever 
outworking from the Divine mind upon ours, although 
we may not cooperate voluntarily with His will. My 
impression is that all those moral tendencies we feel, all 
those yearnings we have, are the crying out of the soul 
for God, under the influence and ministration of His love 
to us. I think that every throb of our spirits that an- 



168 ROYAL TRUTHS 

ritual things I by the influence of 

v Him. I 
- of it. As I I that Ls Bent away I 

1. under - - - . h that it does 

know its friends, _ .—sick, a - for 

ither and here are 

many home-sick men who feel in themselves - 
they know not what. It is their soul 
cause II . _ apon them by 

His thought an 1 love, — only they do not know 
i:> lai _ _ . 

And that is not all. It seems to me we have t 
mony in the work: ga : : ridence of God in the 

3 of our daily life, that God's love is still - 
upon us. although we may he unconscious of it. I r 
led to have real the case of a man in a city of souti 
Europe who spent 1/ in getting property, and 

pular among his fellow-citizens >unt 

of what - to them his miserly si: it. Winn his 

will • - I after his death, it sta 

poor, and had Buffi had 

feririg lack of 

r, and tl imu- 

- - '. 

afterwards the : 
Ir turned out that the man 
- leath, had been la) 
iter for tl selves 

and their children. Oh! bow s been building an 

is, I le DOt i 
preting II d we not understanding them! 



If you had <_ r '»ne to Wes\ .. when J:>hn and 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 169 

Charles met in the University, and Whitfield and others 
met with them, and looked upon this handful of men who 
were derided as the ofTscouring of the earth in their day, 
would you have suspected what a fair fabric was to arise 
through their humble instrumentality? You never would 
have dreamed of it. For God seemed to be everywhere 
but with them. No flaming chariot came down to them, 
no silver trumpet sounded before them ; no messengers 
from heaven led them ; no angel choirs sang to them as 
they sang to shepherd ears when Christ came. They 
were poor, hated, bemobbed men. It was on that very 
account that they became the men they did. The same 
elements were with them which accompanied the advent 
of the Babe of Bethlehem. For whenever Christ is born 
into the world, He comes in as when He was first born. 
He came in at the bottom ; He came in through a manger, 
with the poor standing round about Him ; and whoever, 
professing the name of Christ, comes in in any other way 
is a thief and a robber. 



When a simple child is by his father first taken out to 
sra, and the storm arises, and terrible waves run in upon 
the ship, and winds smite it, and it reels and careens, and 
the groaning timbers strain, and the sails and cordage fill 
the air with clack and clamor, the child is sure that safety 
is at an end, and that destruction is upon them ; and he 
is amazed to see the captain, his father, going about 
sternly resolute, but without quailing; the man at the 
helm calm, watchful, but not afraid ; and the sailors alert 
and hearty in obedience. After a while, the child begins 
to gather confidence, too; not so much because he sees 
how they are to be kept safely, — foi every time he looks 
over the side of the vessel his fear takes possession of 



17! i YAL TRUTHS. 

_ tin, — as by the conviction thai his father kn 
how them, if 1. w. He ] 

fidence in him. Instead of trusting io his own - 
till- matt( i trusts in this being who >■ 

now to him almost superhuman. And we praise the child 
for doing bo. We admire in the child those qnali 
which lead him to have Buch nee in his father 

a- to rebuke his own And we think that - 

di.-tru-t of one's own inexperience, an 8 in 

another's experience, is not only b si di- 

vine. It is in a child ; and it is in everybody, if it be 
exercised toward One that holds the same relation to 
him that the child's father doe- to the child. 



If you look in detail into the history of the Puritanf 
seems hard that they should have been treated with such 
contempt as was heaped upon them. Well, it de| 
upon what was to be made of them. If it v. 1 to 

make puff-balls of them ; if it was desin 

- of them; if it w it their skin 

with - . and put them into the high plac 

eartfa 3, and worship them, and make them the 

cipients of passing enjoym< _'■ that 

could have befallen them, were the things whi 
the old Puritans. Bat when a man want- to mak< 
sword, he al with it as you would deal with a 

II- • k - the 
plumps it into a re -hot furnace, and melts it. and i 

at, and pats it back 
subjects it to a ther purifying pn 1 ;tt 

1. Then he puts it under a trip- 
hammer, which sm - if the thunder were kissii 
until <:\<:vy particle that flies i it is hk<- a ?] 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 171 

of fire. Then it is good to make swords thai will stand 
in the day of battle. It must go through fire and water 
if you would have it make a sword that will not betray 
you in the hour of trial. And when God made the 
Puritans, he made them as we make swords. And I 
tell you, they were swords of God. And men that pulled 
them out of their scabbards wished they could push them 
back again ! 

It does me good, sometimes, to see all things going 
just right, and everybody crying about them ! It does 
me good to see things moving forward with God at the 
helm, and everybody offering prayers, and burning wax 
candles, and making vows, and telling what they will do 
if they can be saved ! It does me good to see men racing 
about as if all creation was after them, and they were on 
the point of being devoured by dragons ! It does me 
good to see men who profess to be Christians ; who ac- 
cept every one of the thirty-nine articles of faith, and 
would accept forty-nine if it were necessary ; who are all 
the time talking about God and heaven ; who are all the 
time singing such hymns as " When I can read my title 
clear " ; who are active in prayer-meetings, delightful in 
revivals, charming in conference-meetings ; who are very 
devout and trusting on Sunday, — it does me good to see 
such men, the moment they get into Monday or Tuesday, 
and hear the least rustle in the heavens, forget Bible, and 
prayers, and hymns, and God, and eternity, and ask, 
" Where is my chest ? where are my customers ? where 
are my prospects ? where are my notes ? where is my 
prosperity ?" When men look after God, they generally 
look in the way in which their real god is ; and when 1 
see men in times of trouble running after worldly things 



172 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

instead of looking to God, T say to myself, "Those are 
your idols; these are what you believe in." Let them 
take counsel of such things, if they will. 

But, are we to be among that puling crew? Are we 
to be children of fear, — we that are descendants of men 
who lived without sight, purely by faith; who steered 
through stormy seas and ages, with face- turned upward; 
who were wise toward earth, because they were wise to- 
ward heaven? Are we to be degenerate children of such 
ancestors, and to quake with fear lest God shall now 
abandon or forget His own purposes, or let go the inter- 
ests that are as dear to Him as the apple of His i 
I am ashamed of anybody that is afraid. Let us ping 
when other people cry ; and laugh when other people 
scowl ; and walk elastic when other people trudge with 
lead in their shoes. For men that have lead in their 
shoes generally have it in their head, too! It is not for 
us to be without hope and comfort. It is for us to ask, 
u Which way is righteousness going, which way is justice 
going, which way is humanity going, which way is truth 
going, which way is social purity going, which wa; 
love going, among a great people?" I do not care which 
way the earth is going. 1 want to take my direction 

from God's brightest constellations, and Bteer by them. 



No man would suspect what the kitchen was from the 
banquet ; and certainly no man would BUSpecl what the 
banquet Was from the kitchen. No man Beeing the dyr- 
vat, would Buspect what the finished silk was; and DO 
man seeing the finished Bilk, would BUSpect where it came 
from. And the peace and prosperity of the world come 
rroni causes in which, when you look at then, you see no 
prophecy of their results; because God, working in the 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 173 

great, sphere of the universe, and in the vast sweep of 
time, by so many instrumentalities, and instrumentalities 
of such largeness — working in one century for the next, 
and in that for the next — outruns the proportions of our 
working and our following. But if you go back and look 
at past ages, you shall find that those things which have 
seemed the most prosperous, have been the least so; and 
that those things which have seemed the most disastrous, 
have been the most prolific of good. 



If men begin to preach the gospel in its relations to a 
better state of society, if men begin to apply the Gospel to 
questions of war, questions of slavery, questions of usury, 
questions of national intercommunication, people start 
back, and say, " The Gospel was ordained for the salva- 
tion of men's souls ; and you are going out o^ your way 
when you preach of these extrinsic things." The pub- 
lishers of religious books publish those which aro for the 
conviction and the conversion of men, for their souls' sal- 
vation, and let all other questions alone. It is right that 
they should publish such books ; but the implication that 
the only end of the Gospel in this world is to be a 
wrecker's boat, to be sent out to a ship rolling dismasted 
on the tempestuous sea, and take off those that are in 
danger, the crew, and save them, is not right. While it 
is a boat sent to a ship rolling dismasted on the sea. it is 
to save both the ship and the crew. It is the design of 
the Gospel to bring the old ship into port, to rig her 
again, and to send her out with crew after crew, and 
maintain her on the water, and not let her founder nor 
go down. Or, to drop the figure, the Gospel of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, while it has a special reference to the con- 
dition of each generation, has also a comprehensive refer- 



174 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

enee to the condition of successn 2 rations of tli* 
world, from the earliest periods down to the dawn of that 
millennial day in which the r j ne rated, shall yet 

stand. The I contemplates something more glori- 

ous than the mere individual salvation of men from 
period to period; it contemplates the salvation of the 
world, as well as of individual generations of the world. 
And while it does possess an individual application to 
eaeh class and period, while it does seek to convict and 
convert men, and build them up as far as it can in their 
day, it has a larger purpose, — the augmentation of future 
world-character. The Gospel, then, is to save, not indi- 
viduals alone, but the race ; and to save them, not by 
plucking them out of the world from generation to gener- 
ation, but by making each successive generation higher, 
and stronger, and nobler, until the world shall be like a 
bride dressed for her wedding, that God, the Husband, 
may embrace it and lead it to the bridal altar. The par- 
tial idea, glorious as it is, becomes narrow when you 
compare it with the fulness of the whole. I think the 
Balvation of each individual generation is a work worthy 
of the blood of the Saviour, and of His death; but for 
the race to be disenthralled, and enabled to stand amid 
the waves and storms of time, — that is more glorious 
yet. And that i- the Scriptural ideal. 



God is united to us, and we are united to Him. not by 
any form of matter, not by physical conjunction or con- 
tiguity, but by the intersphering of soul-life. It is that 

winch knit- us to Him. Our thoughts reach out and 
thread themselves to His thoughts, and thus bring us 
t • vard Him. 

Hence, ( ! I'fl union with men is not a .-ha low, is not a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 175 

figure, is not a dream : it is the statement of a fact as 
lireral as any law in nature. The union of sunlight with 
vegetables is not more real. The flow of nourishing sap 
in fruits is not more literal than the interfusion and soul- 
union of God's soul with men's. 

What a wonderful and glorious doctrine is this, that 
the soul of God touches the soul of man ! As there is 
no babe cradled and rocked that has not its mother, in 
the ordinary course of life, to overhang it by night and 
by day, to kiss it as it sleeps, and to cover it with smiles 
and caresses when it wakes ; so every creature that is 
born into life has a God whose ever- watchful soul broods 
tenderly over it by day and by night, and who inter- 
spheres it in His own radiant thought and feeling. 



Christ was not so much with His disciples when 
wearing a human body, and walking with them, as after 
His ascension. He did not go so much away from them 
when taken into heaven, as He had done while on earth. 
He had been separated from them, as it were, in the body. 
The fepirit has its poorest chance in this world, where it 
has to work trough an untransparent body. And it was 
needful that He should be taken up, that He might con- 
summate that spiritual union which was possible to a less 
degree in the body than out of the body. 

The eye, the ear, the hand, cannot connect us with 
each other ; for although we gaze, although we listen, al- 
though we clasp electric hands, it is something within the 
flesh to which the eye makes its report, to which the ear 
makes its report, to which every sense makes its report. 
Every man is conscious of something inside that is not of 
the body. It is the soul that finds the soul. It is spirit 
that recognizes spirit* Inward spiritual unity is first; 



176 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and the unity of sense is hut its representative or symbol 
The only substantial union of affection is that which 
come- from the touching of soul with soul. It is invisi 
ble and spiritual. 

Christ ascended is nearer to the world, more apprehen- 
sible, and more at one with the soul of every believer, 
than if lie stood clothed in a body, visibly, before men. 
It was needful, perhaps, for the disciple, that Christ 
should disappear from the sense, in order to reappear to 
his inward life and spirit. 



What is the doctrine of the Holy Ghost? It is the 
doctrine of the interworking of the Spirit of God upon 
the souls of men. I have no philosophy about it. All I 
say is this: that God knows what is the secret way in 
which mind reaches mind. I do not, — you do not. I 
do not know why words on my tongue wake up thoughts 
corresponding to those words in you. I do not know 
why the soul of man. like a complex instrument of won- 
drous scope, is played upon by my words, so that there 
are waked up in it notes along the whole scale of h 
I do not understand why these things are BO, hut un- 
questionably they are so. I do not know how the mother 
pours her affection on the child's heart; but she d 
Two .-tar- never shone into each other as two loving 
souls shine into each other. I know it is so, hut I do not 
know why it is so. I do not know how soul touches soul, 
how thought touches thought, or how feeling touches feel* 
ing ; hut I know it do( 3. 

.Now that which we see in the lower departments of 
lit'.'. — that which exists between you and your friends, 
and me and my friends, — that I take, and by my imagi- 
nation I lift it up into the Divine nature, and give j« 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 177 

depth aW H*?ope and universality ; and then I have some 
conception of the doctrine of God's Spirit poured upon 
the human soul. 



The moment a man's heart touches the heart of Christ 
in living faith, he becomes, whether he knows it or not, 
the brother of every other, in heaven or on earth, who 
has come into the same relationship with Christ. Who- 
ever is united to Christ, is brother or sister to everybody 
else that is united to Him. 



The whole brotherhood of Christian men, in all the 
earth, that now live, are mine. And in this great house- 
hold there is to the soul no division such as, from the 
weaknesses and imperfections of life, exists in external 
matters. Every good man is, so far, of my faith. Every 
Christian man is therefore mine, simply because he is 
Christ's. I am Christ's, — though most unworthy, — 
and He is mine. Wonderful, that my lips should be per- 
mitted to say that I own God ! Nor would I say it if it 
had not been said, " All things are yours." I would not 
say it if it had not been said that I was heir with Christ, 
because He became my brother. I would not dare to say 
it if these things had not been said. But now I dare go to 
God, unabashed and undaunted, and say to Him, " Since 
I am thine, whatever thou ownest in man throughout the 
universe, I own. All men are indeed mine. I am 
united to them. I am related to everything that has got 
my nature and thine." 

I wish I knew more of them. It comforts me to be- 
lieve that the silent ones are sometimes as rich as the 
noisiest ones, — that the unfruitful in outward things are 
contributing to the nations more than external labor. 
8* l 



178 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

There are men in dungeons that the world could not d* 
without. You know the dungeon is the oracle of God, 
and speaks most precious things to men. The best things 
that ever came into this world came when Christ wai 
riven, and immortal life flowed out; and men are riven, 
and immortal truths and examples flow out. 



There is a most unutterable gladness and Bweeti 
in Binging together. We are so much under the domin- 
ion of the body yet, that in prayers, whore there is the 
silent accompanying by thousands of the utterances of 
one voice, there seems less indication of this union than 
in singing. I never see my congregation singing, that I 
do not feel, M There at last goes the breath of their soul 
and mine ; and that hymn is the chariot that is taking us 
together up before the throne of God." 

Tiie process of being born again is like that which 
a portrait goes through under the hand of the artist. 
When a man is converted, he is but the outline -ketch of 
a character which he is to ±111 up. He first lays in the 
dead coloring. Then comes the work of laying in the 
colors ; and he goes on, day after d:\y. week after week, 
month after month, and year after year, blending them, 
and heightening the effect It is a life's work; and 
when he dies he is still laying in and blending the colors, 
and heightening the effect And if men BUppose the 
work is done when they are converted, why should we 
expect anything but lopsided Christian characters? 



All men that have had a noble ancestry feel a joyful 
sympathy with them* We like to trace our name, evea 

if it ends in some honest farmer. We like to know ouf 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 179 

origin. We like to go to the mountain and find the very 
hole in the rock from which the spring spirts, whether 
we are the river or the morass ! We are fond of tracing 
our ancestry, if it have glory, and if it have none. It 
gives us pleasure to trace our forefathers to colonial days, 
and to the Mayflower, — that ark of the covenant for 
America. Moses carried the ark through the sands ; 
our fathers carried it through the waves. 

We love to trace our ancestry to early houses and 
families in England. We love to trace it to Huguenot or 
Hebrew blood. Neither is this vain or foolish. It may 
become so through abuse, but it is not so of necessity. 
It is right. A man may take something from the loom 
of the past to cover the nakedness of the present with. 

But mere bodily ancestry is the lowest form of a great 
truth. The soul gives relationship. All who have lived, 
and, by God's help, poured their life as a soul-wine forth 
for the refreshment of the world, are my ancestors, my 
relations. All the patriarchs are mine. Not to the Jew 
alone are Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ; but to every 
man that knows how to feel like them, and revere them. 
All judges of Israel ; all prophets and holy priests ; all 
religious kings and patriotic men ; all apostles, ministers, 
and confessors ; all holy men of the cloister, — in ages 
when the cloister benefited society ; the heroes of dun- 
geons and scaffolds ; the witnesses for liberty in every 
age, and everywhere, — these men seem to us dim and 
shadowy ; but we love to go back and make them more 
substantial. We love to search those long forgotten, and 
give them resurrection, and claim them as our own. I 
go back to them with fervent joy. Their blood is mine. 
It beats in me ; for the blood of Christ it is that makes 
of one blood all good men on earth. I am blood-kindred 
to all that have been blood-sprinkled from on high. 



180 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

I do not know how much this yoo. That de- 

pends upon circumstances. I; as hard as a ten- 

penny nail, and have i heart than that, probably 

- not much. You may be a nail, and that in a - 

bat to any one that has any considerable i 

tiun. and any considerable enthusiasm of affection, I think 

it will be a source of great com . one, 

would not for anything give up my heritage in the | 
I ask no rose-. I ask no titles, I ask no estates 

ihe revenues which my own heart can bring forth of 
iympathy and inspiration and }>y from the past To 
j* cry man that ever did a noble deed, to every man that 
^vcr thought a noble thought, to every man that 
achieved a noble purpose, to every man that ever <~ 
to autier for the right, to every man that ever laid d 
Ire life for truth. I am related. I am related to all that 
is good in the past. 

I do not distinguish men one from another merely by 
the difference of their thought-power. Still less 4o I 
distinguish them by the difference of their executive 
power. There must be a deeper gauge than these. Still 
less d I distinguish them by their external differe: B, 
as where one is high and another is low ; where one is 
rich and another is poor; where on< se and another 

is unwise. The point where true manhood resides is in 
the neighborhood of love. In the copiousness, the vari- 
the endlessness, the Bi - and the purity of the 

element of 1 shall find the measure that God 

applies, discriminating between one and another. 



As I sat ai -day a! the meadow.- and at the 

1 _:it within myself. - What message have they 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 181 

for me of my God, and from my God?" And all day long 
I have felt that never was there such an interpretation of 
munificence ; that never was there anything that so indi- 
cated what it was to give without money and without 
price, — to give out of a nature w 7 hose spontaneity is 
generous, profuse, magnificent. 

As, in wandering from one thing to another, I looked 
at the freshness of nature, and the multitude of her chil- 
dren, — those hidden in coverts, those under dark, cool 
rocks, those laid in where mosses are, those growing in 
the broad fields, those springing up under the shadow of 
forest trees, and those suspended upon their boughs in 
the air, — as I looked at all these things, I found I could 
scarcely estimate in one square yard where I sat, how 
many notes God had rung, how many thoughts He had 
bestowed, how much care He had lavished, how much 
power He had exerted, and how much wisdom He had 
displayed. And there came to my mind such a sense of 
God's overruling providence and presence, as has made 
the whole day one of unexampled sweetness to me. 
There was not a single bird that I had time to hear, or 
rather that I was awake to hear, — for you must wake 
early or you cannot hear the birds sing in chorus. From 
four to five o'clock is the time for family prayer, and 
they always have congregational singing then ! If you 
miss that, you will not hear anything like it during the 
whole day, although during the whole day there is not 
an hour in which they are silent, — there w r as not a single 
bird that I heard that did not direct my thoughts to God. 
And all through the day, in the singing of the birds, in 
the blossoming of the trees, on the broad green sward, 
along the sides of the w r alls, skirting the edges of the wood- 
lands, through the glades, in the air, on the earth, every- 



182 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

where, it seemed as though God were almost so near 
that I should hear Him. and see Him, as certainly I felt 
Him. 

And what a joy then- Is in knowing that the earth is 
not merely Bomething that God thought of when lie 
made it, and, as it were, -pun out of His hand, Baying 
"Go, take care of thyself"; hut that it I — ( > l'a daily 
care, that it is His estate, that He works it as I work my 
garden, and that He watches all things in it with that 
same anxiety and interest with which I watch one plant 
after another that I mean to see blossom, and mean to 
help to blossom ! To us, nothing makes the world so 
precious, nothing makes it so profitable, nothing makes 
it so little barren and so much rich, nothing so takes away 
its sordidness, as the knowledge of God's solicitude con- 
cerning it, and His care over it. 



AVe are branched on every side with faculties exqui- 
sitely susceptible of influence. The whole world is driv- 
ing, and moving about us, and upon us. And no man 
can prevent dent- and scratches, unless he looks before 
and provides beforehand. If a man allows his body to 
Come into collision with rock, or tree, or hedge, or wall, 
it is too late for him to avoid injury. He should have 
kept off. We protect the eye, the nerve-woven >kin; we 
learn to be vigilant without volition for the body, and 
even when absorbed in thought there i- yet a subtle 
piloting of the body by the mind. I know not how: we 
see the stone without Beeming to see it ; we avoid the 
ditch without knowing that we noticed it ; we lift the 
foot with a regulated gradation to meet the varying Bm> 
of the road, quite unconsciously ; we instinctively 
discern the; qualities of things, and accommolate our' 
selves to them. 



tiOYAL TRUTHS. 183 

But the soul is more sensitive than the body. It has 
a greater surface, it has more branches, it has more arms 
and feet, it has more nerves, it has more injurable attri- 
butes, than the body. It carries them, too, amidst flying 
missiles countless, endless in succession. When the fire 
touches gauze, it is too late then to interfere ; you must 
not let it touch it. When the rap is given to the crystal 
vase, it is too late then to save it ; you must keep it free 
from the blow. When the frost has struck the flower, 
watching is then remediless ; you must keep it where 
the frost cannot reach it. We must keep sensitive things 
free from rude contacts. That is true wisdom in prac- 
tical life. And so of hundreds of moral things. We must 
keep them away from evil, so that it shall not overtake 
them. A man must carry himself, not so as to repent of 
harm, but so as, by constant vigilance and forethought, 
to prevent harm from befalling him. 



Philosophers go to the glaciers, — those frozen rivers 
that move with a slow and steady pace down the moun- 
tain-side, — and set stakes on the firm rocks, and meas- 
ure how far the whole body moves within a given length 
of time. By means of these unmoving stakes they can 
detect its almost imperceptible but continuous motion, 
through day and night, and summer and winter, which 
the heedless never observe, nor believe in 

2sow, if you take your stand on the firm rock of God's 
truth, and watch men, I think you will see that they 
move with a slow and steady motion. I take sight at a 
good many men. I see where they start from, at what 
pace they are moving, and in what direction they tend. 
Their motion is slow and steady, like that of the everlast- 
ing glacier ; and every moment they are moving down- 



1S4 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ward ! They are not law-breakers ; they are not bad 

citizen.-, — it does not take much to he a good citizen 
they are not men addicted to lust or drinking. But if tc 
transform one's whole being into the love of money; if 
to Bet before one's Belf, not God. not immortality, not jus- 
tice, not purity, not faith, nor any of the ethereal virtues 
of the eternal realm, but the acquisition of property; if 
to seek, above all things, to become money-strong, to 
build pyramids for men to see, whose broad base shall 
cover acres, and every stone of which shall be solid gold ; 
if to think golden thoughts, and measure force- by a 
golden measurement, and estimate men thereby, and 
value customs, laws, institutions, sanctuaries, books, ev< ry- 
thing, by the amount they will bring in the market, — if 
that is to move downward, then there are men who are 
going down the sides of Mount Sinai as surely as the 
glaciers move down the sides of the Alps ! And I tell 
you it is time, not that men should watch for each other, 
but that every man should wake up and watch for him- 
self. 



A laav, to be of any use to you, must be higher than 
your practice under it. There is no use in your attempt- 
ing to learn to write, when already you can write as 
well as the copy. There is no use in your going to 
School when you know as much as your master. There 
is no use of your sitting before a drawing-board to learn 

to draw, when you can draw better than him that teaches 
you. And no rule, no principle, is of any L r n-at use to a 
man unless it is in advance of hi* attainment-. From 
the lowest forms of physical industry up to the highest 
spiritual virtue-, the indispensable requisite lor growth is 
the conception of something better than has been, or than 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 185 

is, in us. All industries are prosperous as they are striv- 
ing toward something better. 



An orchestra that should play through the whole of 
Beethoven's Eighth Symphony and only chord five or six 

times from beginning to end, would hardly be considered 
first-class performers. An occasional discord can be tol- 
erated, but such an absence of concord that perfect har- 
mony is touched but five or six times in the playing of 
the whole piece, is intolerable. 

Now, our life touches concord only once in a while, 
and all the rest of the time it plays in discord ; and when 
a man who is striving to live according to God's law be- 
gins to find this out, he says to himself, " I am perpet- 
ually coming short of my standard ; I not only do not 
love right, but I hate it often ; I not only do not obey, 
but I positively disobey : I not only do not seek the 
strait path, but I rejoice to walk in the broad road ; I 
not only do not control my temper as I should, but I 
allow it to scourge and torment others ; and how can I 
call myself a Christian ? " He strives for a month, for six 
months, for a year, to live aright, and finds that in spite 
of all his strivings his life is still imperfect, — wofully 
imperfect. 

And then what happens ? Oftentimes under such cir- 
cumstances a man says, i; The standard is too high. One 
never can reach it. and therefore it is too high. It ouoht 
not to have been put so high." Now, the worst thing a 
human being can do is to bring down his standard. That 
does not bring up conduct. The conduct will be about 
so far below the standard, whether it is high or low. 
Many a Christian insensibly falls into a self-indulgent 
state, and has in himself this unexpressed feeling: "It 



186 YAL TRUTHS. 

'. !• ak iu 
preaching, but it is i d to live 

and it is of do use for i 
mak- ink that Chri .: we 

_ - ring the B 

■ op to tl 

I) i I. when I open my house - _ for orpb 

rerp; - I take 

them in? No; t' ones I take first Do I re- 

that they should be well clothe 1 ? No ; their very 
ir invitation. Do I take tliem in because 
_ filiate ? No ; they cannot read a 
Th^ir only education is profanity. The r» 
I take them in is because I am benevolent, and they are 
ly. And the reason that Christ accept- as i- b^-ause 
9 u-. and we are in need of His loving-kind 
It is only those who hug their sins, and refuse to give 
them up. that He rej- 



G< *i _ ipremacy have been taught so 

the impression of and un- 

_-.ty. I hold and teach tl. 
supreme; that in tl _ and will and government B 

_ : and that. 1. 
He takes counsel of none, askfl . and 

Dment and all 
I I : 1 that this i glorious d i hich 

- in nature than in 

can- 

t too much for my l It may be 

tl in the - - ( I 1 1 

thai II ir above 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 187 

men that He is out of sympathy with them, and that 
they of necessity are out of sympathy with Him, then we 
have lost our God. It is not necessary to make orphan- 
age among men in order to make God sovereign. It is 
not necessary, in order to make God radiant and glorious, 
to make Him like Mont Blanc, which is beautiful, to be 
sure, with its snow-white covering, but which is cold and 
forbidding, nevertheless. Men seem to have lifted God 
up into such solitariness of supremacy as to make Him 
unsympathetic, careless of men, and regardful of nothing 
but Himself. Men have seemed to think that there was 
an entity called government, by which God so separated 
Himself from men that their thoughts could not find Him 
with any joy, hope, or pleasure. 



The great incarnation mystery, the peculiar mission 
of Christ, is this : that He brought God down to us, that 
He revealed God to us in His example, while walking 
the streets of Jerusalem, — while going about the high- 
ways of Palestine, — while sitting on the mountain side, 

— while in the vessel, — while raising the widow's son 
to life, — while distributing all things, reserving nothing 
for Himself, so that He had not where to lay His head, 

— while using His whole being for others, and not for 
Himself. The example of Christ was, as it were a sec- 
tion of God's eternal life let down into this world, that 
men might see One whose nature it is to administer for- 
ever and forever on the principle of making His own 
being subservient to the welfare of those over whom He 
presides. And when He was caught up again into heaven 
the same blessed work went on, only in a higher sphere. 

Christ is spoken of as " the Lamb slain from the foun- 
dation of the world."' That which men saw of God 



188 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

during the brief space of thirty-three }eara was only a 
specimen of His life before and after. And that being 
God, to give Himself perpetually for the good of His 
creatures; that being God, to eternally love and succor 
the intelligences that He lias made ; that being God, to 
bestow the vast stores of His nature in endless benefac- 
tion; that being God, blessed be His name that He does 
live for His own glory, that He never does Btoop from 
the lofty altitude to which He is lifted, and that He 
never does swerve from the purposes of His adminis- 
tration. 



One man has kindness deep within him ; and when 
the occasion comes, the rind or shell is cracked, and the 
kernel is found. Such a man's heart, too Ions clouded, 
like a sun in a storm-muffled day, shoots through some 
opening rift, and glows for a period in glory. But there 
are other natures that are always cloudless. With them, 
a cloud is the exception, shining is the rule. They ri<e 
radiant over the horizon ; they fill the whole heavens 
with growing brightness, and all day long they overhang 
life, pouring down an undiminished flood of brightness 
and warmth. 



WHETHER other men have received more or less than 
you have, is not the question at all. Have you not re- 
ceived all von have earned? Has there been any oppor- 
tunity withheld from you? You desire ease ; but where 

is the evidence that you have earned it ? You desire 

pleasure ; bul where is the e\ idence that you have earned 
it? You desire comfort; bul where is the evidence that 

you have earned it ? Doe- BOciety Owe JTOU these things 

before you have earned them? No more than the wil- 



ROYAL TRbTHS. 189 

derness owes me harvests which I have not sown, or 
fruits which I have not planted. Society owes you what 
you have gained, achieved, — nothing more. 

If you say there are men that have not worked half 
so hard as you have, w T ho have got ease, or wealth, or 
honor, there may be a question to be raised as to why 
they have got it, but there is no question to be raised as 
to why you have not got it. You do not deserve it. 
And if you say, " Neither do they," it may be so, and it 
may not ; but that does not touch the question at all. 
"Is thine eye evil because I am good ? " Has God de- 
frauded you because He has dealt bountifully with other 
men ? If I give one beggar a penny, and pass by the 
next one without giving him anything, do I cheat the one 
to whom I give nothing ? Have I not a right, on the 
ground of generosity, to give to one when I do not give 
to the other ? Is it not optional with me to do what I 
will with my own ? Is it not my privilege, where I 
violate no pledge, and where I am left simply to the dic- 
tates of my feelings and judgment, to give to one, and 
refuse to give to another ? And are a man's own feel- 
ings to measure my conduct in this matter? 



" I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ 
for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." 

I wish you could see what stupendous ingenuity of 
folly has been employed in finding out what that signi- 
fies ; how men have put on spectacles, and double spec- 
tacles, and quadruple spectacles, to pry into its meaning, 
saying, " Did he really think he would be willing, to lose 
his soul for the sake of his brethren ? " thus screwing the 
words up to exact measurement. It is as though an old 
hard-hearted bachelor should hear a mother, in anguish 



190 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

of sou], exclaim, u I would give my life a thousand times 
over to Bave mv child ? n and he should stand and Bay, 

"A thousand times? Two hundred and fifty would be 

a great many. A thousand times?" Why, feeling is 
always, in its nature, full of overplusage. It defies and 
scorns measurement. Such extravagant expressions mean 

simply much. When a man's heart is full, and he wants 
to rise to a royal conception, he disdains measured lan- 
guage. The apostle says, u I could wish myself accursed 
from Christ," and nothing else could indicate how strong 
his feeling was. He did not stop to think what the literal 
interpretation of these words would he. 



"To the intent that now unto principalities and pow- 
ers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the 
manifold wisdom of God." 

When God sets forth His manifold wisdom, what are 
to be the leaves of the book that shall be revealed? 
Palpitating hearts are to be the leaves of that great book. 
From the beginning of the world to its last day, men 
shall go up in order, and every human soul that has lived 
and yearned for help, and received help, Bhall recite its 
experience; and it Bhall be an experience manifesting the 
wisdom of God in this world. And every Christian will 
be a new page, a new history ; but DOt one written with 

ink nor cut in stone, but one that has been experienced 
in the living soul When God Bhall make manifest what 
has been His wondrous wisdom, martyrs, and confessors, 

and holy prophets, and apostles and humble Christians 
will rise up in thousands and ten- of thousands, yea, in 
multitudes without number, chanting and -peaking that 
wisdom. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 191 

If you bring me a basketful of minerals from Califor- 
nia, and I take them and look at them, I shall know that 
this specimen has gold in it, because I see there little 
points of yellow gold ; but I shall not know what the 
white and the dark points are that I see. But let a 
metallurgist look at it, and he will see that it contains not 
only gold, but silver, and lead, and iron, and he will 
single them out. To me it is mere stone, with only here 
and there a hint of gold ; but to him it is a combination 
of various metals. 

Now, take the Word of God, that is filled with pre- 
cious stones and metals, and let one instructed in spiritual 
insight go through it, and he will discover all these treas- 
ures ; while if you let a man uninstructed in spiritual 
insight go through it, he will discover those things that 
are outside and apparent, but those things that make 
God and man friends, and that have to do with the im- 
mortality of the soul in heaven, will escape his notice. 
No man can know these things unless the Spirit of God 
has taught him to discern them. 



The mother suffers most for the child and is nearest 
like the Saviour to him, — for we are nearest those, 
and most glorious in the esteem of those, for whom we 
suffer most. Do not you know how things will loom up 
and magnify when you see them through a haze ? So 
when you see persons through tear-drops which they 
have shed for you, and the things that they have suffered 
for you, they are magnified, and seem more saintlike to 
you. 

Respecting the whole tendency of men here, this is 
true : that the less you develop them, the more content 



192 YAL TRUTHS. 

they aie in regard to immortality. The nearer a man is 
to a b ated does he fi el. We talk ot 

punishing men by withholding j . them. Men Bay 

that miser- are punished becaoe not the 

which spiritually-minded men have. You might as well 
Bay that a toad ia punished beeau- not know 

what the philosopher knows. It' a man 1. got a 

thing, and does not know that such a thii a its, and 
does not want it, is he punished by not having it? Do you 
suppose a leaf is punished in the measure of the tilings 
that it does not have? Do you suppose a man is pun- 
ished in the measure of the things that he has not got? 
Do you suppose a coward know- what he lacks in cour- 
age ? Do you Buppose a mean man knows what he hicks 
in magnanimity ? The lower you go down in the scale 
of human being, the less discontent you will find. And 
the moment you begin to bring a man up. bis every Btep 
i- taken with aspiration, susceptibility, yearning, and 
longing, all of which point in one direction, and lead 
him to feel in his whole inward experience, M I am not 
of this world. There ought to be another place for me 
to live in." 



Wb carry something of God in us. It does not exist 
in such a form that we can define it. If the loL r i«'ian 
3 to me with reference to it, u Stat< 
»' what you Bay"; if. like an apothecary, he wants 
that I Bhould weigh it in - _ • him the result 

in drachms and scruples, I cannot meet him. Neverthe- 
less, I think there are th f witnesses who will 
an undj a I duty in my bosom that I 
am allied to God in such a way that I shall not he extin- 
g lished when this life is ended ; that I shall not die when 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 193 

I die." I think there is a forelooking into the life to come. 
It seems to me that there are in the lives of many — 
certainly there are in the lives of the more favored ■ — 
hoars in which they seem to themselves to stand with only 
the filmiest separations between them and the spirit-land. 
Some think that they can pierce i: and discern it. I 
hope they can. We cannot say much for each other. 
Bat I think all of us have known hoars when we have 
said. " A little more, the least bit more, and I shall see 
and know." I think there have been times when it 
seemed as though voices -pake to you out of the great 
concave: when it seemed as though you almost frit the 
touch of a shadowy presence ; when i: seemed as though 
your soul was caught up. so that you did not know whether 
you were in the body or out o: the body, as the apostle 
declared that he did not. 



Some think that a Christian life is like a canal, with 
proper locks to lift men up and drop them down as occa- 
sion requires. There may be a sluggish, lazy, puddle-life 
of that kind : but there is no such Christian life. No 
man can live a Christian life that does not avail himself 
of all the power given him on every side. There is work 
tor the thought, work for the imagination, work for every 
moral sentiment, work for every affection, work for all 
the combinations of the faculties, in their different moods, 
and through ail the varying periods of life, — youth, 
middle age. and old age ; and if a man would be a Chris- 
tian, a child of the all-working, unslumbering God, he 
must be awake and vigilant. 



Malarias, you know, are dangerous because they 
do not address themselves to any sense. We can put up 

9 M 



194 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

lightning-rods to ward off thunderbolts ; but i.*o man e«m 

put up roils that will protect him from a poisonous at- 
mosphere. You can drain morasses that you can see; 
but you cannot free the atmosphere above them from im- 
purities that you cannot see. The s\ and most 
beauteous days in New Orleans are those on which death 
strikes most terribly there, in times of pestilence. I; is 
on such days that it is the most insidious. It has no 
visible or perceptible exponent. It cannot be detected 
by sight or by touch. And that is what makes it so 
dreadful. 

Now, we are walking in a malarial atmosphere all the 
time : not one that attacks the body ; not one that pene- 
trates the heart ; not one that congests the liver; not one 
that crazes the brain ; but one that infects the soul. The 
60ul is poisoned all the time by pride, vanity, the love of 
money, greed, competitions, rivalries, and the various 
other noxious elements by which it is surrounded. Hu- 
man life is one vast Campagna, and there are, in the 
atmosphere round about men, silent, corrupting forces of 
which they are quite unconscious. And nothing but this 
inward Bpiritual vigilance will make a man a match for 
these things. 



It is not the quality of the thing, hut the quantity. 
Too much watching become- disease, — not watching, but 
too much of it. Too much bread is as bad a- arsenic, 
only in another way. Too much fruit, too much water, 
too much light, too much of anything, is too much, and is 
oppressing, and not nourishing or serving. The simple 
overacting of good makes it mischievous. In respect to 

the body, although the signals of trouble are hung out, 
and the uncomfortableness of Bensation reveals the iin 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 195 

prudence of our indolence, yet it is sufficiently difficult 
for men to keep within the lines of moderation, in the 
body. How much more need of watchfulness, when the 
gradually-growing excess is in a thought-faculty, or in 
the disproportionate use of a feeling ; when the excess is 
not in the nature of the thing felt, but in the continuity 
or degree of it ! We never »in by evil faculties, but 
always by good ones misemployed. There have been 
men that have used good faculties evilly, and that con- 
tinually ; but God never made a bad thing in a man. 
He made him well ; and every blade was to be good, 
every instrument good, every quality good ; and the evil 
that proceeds from him comes from the wrong use of 
things that are good. 



A dull axe never loves grindstones, but a keen work- 
man does ; and he puts his tool on them in order that it 
may be sharp. And men do not like grinding ; but they 
are dull for the purposes which God .designs to work out 
with them, and therefore He is grinding them. 



I never saw a man that did not believe in the im- 
mortality of love when following the body of a loved one 
to the grave. I have seen men under other circum- 
stances that did not believe in it ; but I never saw a 
man that, when he stood looking upon the form of one 
that he really loved stretched out for burial, did not re- 
volt from saying, i; It has all come to that : the hours of 
sweet companionship ; the wondrous interfacings of trop- 
ical souls ; the joys ; the hopes ; the trusts ; the unutter- 
able yearnings, — there they all lie." No man can stand 
and look in a coffin upon the body of a fellow-creature, 
and remember the flaming intelligence, the blossoming 



19(5 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

love, the whole range of Divine faculties, which so lately 
animated that cold clay, and Bay, u These have all col- 
lapsed and gone." No person can witness the last Bad 
ceremonials which are performed over the remains of a 
human being, — the Bealing down of the unopenable 
the following of the rumbling procession to the phi 
burial ; the letting down of the dust into dust : the fall- 
ing of the earth upon the hollow coffin, with those sounds 
that are worse than thunder; and the' placing of the green 
sod over the grave, — no person, unless he he a beast, 
can witness these things, and then turn away and Bay, 
u I have buried my wife; I have buried my child; I 
have buried my Bister, my brother, my love." 

God forbid that we should bury anything. There is 
no earth that can touch my companion. There is no 
earth that can touch my child. I would fight my little 
breath and strength away before I would permit any 
clod to touch them. The jewel is not in the ground. 
The jewel has dropped out of the casket, and I have 
buried tie/ casket, — not the jewel. And you may rea 
son, you may say what you please, you may carry the < a-e 
e supreme court of my understanding, but there 
is e mething higher than : md something back of 

the understanding. All that is in Its at the do- 

n, and spurns it. and Bays, u You must try heart 

the heart. We will not believe but that 
there i< lite somewhere else ; we will not believe that 
life is buried here; and the & _ OUt and cries, like 
a child lost in the woods, to Gnd itself in thid - 
world. Baying, •' Where am I ? ami who shall guide ne j , 
that long and yearn and reach upward: n 



It is not SO much the stalactites as the stalagmites that 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 197 

I am looking after. Those crystalline columns that hang 
down from the roof of the cave are stalactites ; but there 
rise up also from the floor equally crystalline columns, 
which are stalagmites. Now, in my thoughts spring up 
the longing of my soul for honor, the longing of my soul 
for perfect love, the longing of my soul for a sense of rec- 
titude and purity, the longing of my soul for the society 
of spirits of just men made perfect ; and I know that 
these longings spire upward ; and in clear days, excep- 
tional days, I think that I can see the light of heaven 
glisten, and that my thoughts go to the gate, and almost 
within the sacred precinct. I know not that their thoughts 
are able to reach down to me. I hope they are; and 
when there is evidence that they are, I shall be glad to 
receive it. 



I suppose that there are hundreds of men that are 
exceedingly sceptical in regard to the Bible who have a 
certain hidden reverence for it. Why ? God sent them 
an angel, and let her walk with them two years, and then 
took her home ; and they hold her memory with such 
sacredness, that they say, " If there ever was a Chris- 
tian, my wife was one; and she believed in that book, 
and there must be something in it which makes it supe- 
rior to other books." 



Give me a hundred men, — not men that are glowing 
while they sing, and heavenly while they pray, though I 
would have them so, but men that are, morning and noon 
and night, born of God, and that so carry the savor of 
Christ that men coming into their presence say, " There 
is a Christian here," as men passing a vintage say, " There 
are grapes here," — give me a hundred such men, and I 



193 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

will make the world believe. T do not ask to be shown 
the grape-vine in the woods in June before 1 will believe 
it is there. I know that there are a ar when the 

air is lull of their odor; and the question under such cir- 
cumstances always is, "Where is the vine?" and never, 
*What is it that 1 smell?" You are to be a Bavoff 
of love, and peace, and _ leness, and gratitude, and 
thanksgiving, so that wherever yon go, the essence of 
the truth that is in you shall go out to men. 



Natures that are constitutionally overprone to vigi- 
lance are apt conscientiously to redouble that which they 
do not need in such measure. They are of the opinion 

that fear is almost a positive Christian grace. They not 
only set a needless number of sentinel- about the dwelling 
of their soul, but they seem to frequent the company of 
sentinels without, more than that of guests that are, or 
should be, served within. Many a man has little time for 
Christ inside, because he is so busy watching the devil out- 
side. Theirs is a religion which is more in fear of evil 
than in enjoyment of good. There are a great many men 
that have never yet known the profound philosophy <^ 
the command, - B evil 

With goody The way to overcome evil is sometimes to 
I e Bure to watch it ; but a man that does nothing but 
watch evil, never will overcome it. 



WHAT ! doe- a man sin when he IS a Christian ? Cer- 
tainly he does. If n< cue to the communion 
of the Lord's Bupper except those who are void of sin, we 
should have a great wilderness in the church. Do not 
-in ': I- there a day in which you are not Belfish ? 
What is Belfishness? It i- acting with any one of your 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 199 

faculties so as to promote your own good at the sacrifice 
of the good of another. And do you not act so with 
your pride and vanity every day, — ten thousand times a 
day ? Do you not act so with your very conscience and 
benevolence ? Do you not with your love make an idol 
of one side, and cheat the other side ? Does any man 
live an hour without sinning in some of his faculties ? I 
do not suppose a Christian would be a burglar, or sin in 
the sense of violating a civil law, but in the sense of vio- 
lating the law of God there is not a man who lives a single 
hour without sinning. 



Give me the men, and I will write a commentary on 
the Bible that will not need any explanation, — for most 
commentaries are more troublesome than the Bible which 
they are designed to explain. I will put them, not in the 
sanctuary on the Sabbath, but at home, in the street, in 
their neighborhood, in all the intricacies of business, 
everywhere ; and no matter where they may be, they 
shall be a savor of Christ, sweet as the odor of blossoms. 
They- shall be garden-men that have some flowers for 
every month, and that are always fragrant and redolent 
of blossom and fruit. Give me a hundred such men, 
and I will defy the infidel world. I will take them and 
bind them into a living volume, and with them I will 
make the world believe. 



Faith in Christ has no tendency to make a man care-» 
less as to his conduct, or less eager to obey the law of 
God. Do you think that a boy taken out of the house 
of correction would be more in danger of picking the 
pocket of his benefactor than if he had not shown him a 
kindness ? Would not the kindness be the surest guar- 
antee against such an occurrence ? 



200 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

There was a man in Boston (I know not whether he 
lives yet, — yes, he lives, bul I kno% not whether he 

lives in this world) who, though nor rich, was accustom* d 
to go into the courts of justice every mornii s bail 

for culprits that had no friends ; and it was his t 

that of all those for whom he gave bail, not one beti 

him. — not one left him in the lurch. An 1 do 
pose that those creatures whom Christ has helped, and 
whom he lias given a hope of eternal salvation, would 
turn against Him, their best friend, and the one to whom 

they are indebted for their choicest blessings ? Would 
that be human nature? Is there anything on God's 
earth like gratitude to inspire a soul to act in the right 
direction ? 

Now, where a man sees all his imperfections Bwept 
away by Divine love, has he not in this fact the greatest 
stimulus that he could have toward holiness? No man 
is so little tempted to sin, and no man has such vie 
over sin, as the man that loves Christ because He died 
for him. because He lives for him, and through 

Hi- love his sins are washed away to be remembered no 
more forever. 



God i- near to many men that ar His 

presence. The perfume of Divine love is round about 

many men that do not perceive it. You are like men 
who have no sense of smell. You are in the garden of 
the Lord, and you call it a wilderness. Bul wake. () 
soul! out of despondency. If you are — as you know 
you are — sinful, and you long for something !)• 
take hold of (he hand of Christ, and go toward it. lie 
will hold fast to your baud, and will leal you to the end; 

and then you will be saved, not because you are perfi t, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 201 

but because He has swept you into that charmed and 
blessed sphere where the flesh and the world shall drag 
us down no more, but where our enfranchised manhood 
shall lift itself up in ineffable glory, crystalline purity, 
and perfect symmetry. 

It will be with men's excuses in the day of judgment, 
when God looks upon them, as it is with the frost-pictures 
on a window of a winter morning, when the sun looks 
upon them, — they will be gone with His looking. The 
excuses which you paint in this life to justify pride, and 
selfishness, and disobedience, and recreancy, will, the mo- 
ment you stand before God, melt away. 



What is the Bible in your house ? It is not the Old 
Testament ; it is not the New Testament ; it is not the 
Gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, " or Luke, or 
John : it is the Gospel according to William ; it is the 
Gospel according to Mary ; it is the Gospel according 
to Henry and James ; it is the Gospel according to your 
name. You write your own Bible. To every man that 
sets up a Christian household, God says, " I am going 
to reveal my grace through you." And if you have a 
Bible in your family, it will be just so much of that grace 
as you interpret to your children and dependents. And 
do not you know that there is a Bible that has in it a 
large Apocrypha between the Old and New Testament, 
containing Esdras, and Tobit, and Judith, and Ecclesias- 
ticus, and various other books. Now, there is in your 
experience, besides the revelation of the Old Testament 
and the New Testament, an intermediate revelation that 
is false, that is untrue ; and your children read that 
living Bible, — particularly the Apocrypha. It is a 
9* 



202 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

solemn thing for a man to be a Bible that is read by 
those about him. 



Do any of you seem to yourselves to be useless, and 
•ay, " that I was eloquent! O that I could wield the 
pen of a ready writer! O that it was g*ven to me to go 
forth and be an apostle of Christ ! " It is given to every 
one of you to be an epistle of Christ, known and read 
of all men. By your humility, by your truthfulness, 
by your justice, by all the things that make you like 
Christ, you become His minister, and you are known and 
read where you never suspect that you are being known 
and read. Take care, then, and speak right things of 
Christ. See to it that the testimony you bear of Christ 
is such as He would have you bear. 



A child is in a distant country, and there she talks 
of home ; and people who hear her say, u I am glad I 
have not such parents as she had." It comes to her ears 
afterward-, and she says, in tears, " Did I leave an im- 
pression that my parents were had?'' She reproaches 
herself for having done anything to produce such an 
impression. She »ys, u My father and mother are 
noble and true, and I fain would have left an impression 
that they were so." And as children feel in reference 
to the impression they leave of father and mother, so 
ought we to feel in reference to the impression we leave 
of God and Christ We are to live so that men shall be 
led by our work- to glorify our Father in heaven. 



There is a providence) — not a fatality, not a coeicivc 

necessity : but a broad, beneficent system which has, 

whatever it mav be, such a relation to von and lllil 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 203 

world, that you cannot afford to be uneasy. You can 
afford, when you have done your best, to take things 
easy, and enjoy yourself. Think, if you want to think, 
as long as it is pleasant to think ; plan, where you ought 
to plan ; labor, where you ought to labor ; achieve, 
where you ought to achieve ; but thinking, planning, 
laboring, achieving, — let all be done in a spirit of 
confiding trust. As little children will frolic, and play, 
and talk to themselves, and sing, and be happy, if every 
time they look up they can see their mother's form or 
shadow, or hear her voice ; so we are, in God's greater 
household, to have such a consciousness of our Father's 
presence as shall make us happy, cheerful, contented, 
in our sports and duties. 



One reason why we are not trustful and cheerful is, 
that we believe that there will be fulfilments of the prom- 
ises of God only so far as they are wrought out in the 
problems of our understanding. A great many persons 
have said to me, when I propounded this to them, in 
view of their adversities and extremities, " I cannot un- 
derstand how there should be a special providence of 
God. I cannot reconcile the theory of special provi- 
dences with my ideas of general law, and of God's 
agency in nature." That is to say, when God lays down 
an unquestionable command, of the most explicit kind, 
unless you can go behind that command, and can find 
out the philosophy of it, you will not accept it at His 
hands. Simply as a thing commanded by your Father, 
you will not, with the faith of a child, accept it. If you 
can spin it on your wheel, and then weave it in your 
loom, and make it conform to your pattern, you will 
accept it ; but as simply from the hand of God, you will 
hol accept it. 



204 ROYAL TRUTH*. 

Now, I like to reason ; I like to search out result* 
from causes ; but it is sweet for a man, in the midst of 
the turmoils and troubles of life, where he can, to rest 
himself on his faith in God. It is sweet I'm- a man to he 
able to say, "I <lo not care for to-morrow. I do not fear 
what shall befall me. I will trust in God. M To under- 
stand the philosophy of a Divine command, where I can, 
afford* ni" satisfaction ; but where a command c 
from such authority, and with Mich variety of illustration 
in nature, as this one, I do not care whether I under- 
stand the philosophy of it or not. My soul is hungry 
for it, and I accept it because my God has given it. I 
trust and rest in God, simply because lie has paid, "You 
may, and you must." That is ground enough. 



CnursT says, " Are ye not much better than they?" 
Yes, I hope so; though now and then I feel mean 
enough to say u No " to this question. Now and then 
I have such a sense of the poverty and the miserable 
of human life, that I am tempted to say lhat a man is no 
better than bird-. 

It is only when you come to consider not merely our 
relations to this world, but our relations to the future ; 
not merely our imperfections and un growth here, but our 
immortality in the world to come, thai we seem better 
than birds or flowers. When you take in the root, and 
the stem, and the everlasting growth, and the fruit of 
human life, then are we not much better than birdd and 
flowers ? 



One text that hooks a man to God, and that makes 
him feel that in Him he has a Father who wheels the 

bright army of the Stars, who carries the globe in its rev- 



ROYAL :: UTHS. 205 

k is, who is the C >ntrollei of time and rf eternity, who 
is the Creator and Snstainer :: all mankind, — one .: ich 
text :■ how it takes :-. _ ~:u~" are, and anxiety, and ; :> 
row ! How much food there : ; in your Father's boose 
that yon nevei tasted! la that boose there is bread 
enough and :: - are; and yd you gc fretting and wor- 

g th rongh life, borrowing trc able abou : the future, 
hich you have nc aoncern, and making yourself 
a 11 arable in the present, which you have soncern. 



Our if every night God is making ;. path by His ban I 
fort'. r morning, and ::. you; and Hit :: ----:y lay GSod 
is making: a bed of larkness fox die night, and foi you. 



••Behold the Fowls :: the air: they s:~ not, neither 
dc they rea nor gather intc barns. 33 

I thought of that to-day, for when I was vet" busy 
so"w-._- ; :u:e ;l:uk r.ew :wer nay heal, with a 

wild, sarcastic lescant, as much as ::■ say, " Gc :a. old 
cloi-c: isiter '. you si", and I will rejo::e." Hr iaew 
past, and I understood him. 



0. :o :rus lire were all :lta: I eonld have. I should 

it seems tc me, from the present hour to the very 

nnless I xrald say as the ancients lid, ■■ Let as eat, 

It ate \~ T:-ra:rrow — e air. s; let us make 

the I »sf :t the little done : .:.: is left us." I shtttld be in 

: wanton, merry lespair, a the one side \ or of 

tearfuL sad de ; ::. m the other side, I must live again. 

I must make the experiment :: life Mice more. I have 

made poor work here, but I have met with J u ; : success 

enough to feel that if I had a better shance I could do 

something. I am bike a man thai takes the first sanvas 



20(3 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

to paint a picture. He does not know what lie will do. 
He lays in forms in all Borts of ways without coming to 
any satisfactory result. At last he says, M I cannot make 
anything of that picture; but I have a conception. Bring 
me a fresh canvas, and I will try again, when I think I 
shall have hotter success." I have long been trying to 
paint a true life, and have only partially succeeded ; but 
if God Almighty will give me another canvas, I think I 
can paint better. And lie will. He that brought forth 
from the dead our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, will 
bring me forth. And, thank God, when I go home to 
heaven, I shall leave behind many things that will be 
of no use to me there. When an engine is taken from 
one boat and placed in another, it is not necessary that 
the fastenings should go with it. The screws and clamps 
and feeding-pumps that belong to that peculiar ship from 
which it is taken may be left behind. The screws and 
clamps and feeding-pumps that have been necessary to 
keep my mind in this body, and that it has given me BO 
much trouble to patch and mend, I shall leave in the grave. 
But my BUpremest reason, my divinest sentiment- of re- 
ligion, my affections and loves, my tastes, — these God, 
the blessed Pilot, shall carry safely through the grave 
and its darkness, and I shall be planted again in heaven, 
where snow- never fall, where frosts never come, and I 
shall bring out leaf and blossom and fruit ; and then, 
with leaf and blossom ami fruit, I will present myself at 
the Throne of God, saying, "Thou hast given me life, 
and life again, and life forever: to Thee, and to Thee 

only, be praise and honor and glory, evermore." 

What i- more beautiful that that centrality, that self- 
serving, that soilness, which God has given to every 



ROYAL TRUTHS 207 

man, and which leads him to take care of himself? 
What business we would have if we were obliged to take 
care of each other ! How wonderfully God has lightened 
the work of life by giving to every human being an instinct 
by which he is led to care for himself! This attribute of 
our nature relieves the world of a vast accumulation of 
painstaking. And yet how deep — no man can measure, 
— how broad — no man can estimate, — have been the 
mischiefs that have sprung from this element of selfness ; 
for when selfness is carried beyond a certain point, it be- 
comes selfishness, and therefore an instrument of evil. 
The evil does not proceed from the quality of the thing ; 
it is simply the result of not watching to see where the 
thing ceases to be good, and begins to take hold on that 
which is bad. 



A hunter scorns a pigeon-roost ; because he would 
fain have some reward in skill and ingenuity ; and he 
feels that to lire into a pigeon-roost is shocking butchery. 
But for that feeling I should like no better amusement 
than to answer the sermons of men who attempt to estab- 
lish the right of slavery out of the Bible. It would be 
simple butchery ! A man must be addicted to blood who 
would fire a twenty-four pounder into a flock of black- 
birds or crows ! 



As a boy that cannot write at all looks with wonder 
and admiration upon the performance of a writing-master 
who without thought can form the letters and sentences 
so as to make the page look like engraving, while the 
master himself has no idea that he is doing anything 
extraordinary ; so men looked with wonder and admira- 
tion upon the miracles of Christ, by which He fed the 



208 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

multitude, turned water into wine, healed the sick, 
cast out devils, brought the dead from their shadowy 
land, and evoked victory out of defeat, while Christ 
himself did not regard these things as of very great 

importance. They were merely the authentication of 
His divinity. The real thing for which He came was 

that which lay beyond this. His errand was to bring 
upon the human soul a cleansing power, an inspiring 
power, a formative power, lie was to set us free from 
sin, inspire in us a longing for purity, and form our char- 
acter on that basis. Accordingly, Christ is presented 
mainly in the New Testament, from beginning to end, 
in His relations to the soul of man. Even when He is 
compared with His Father, it is always as a means of 
exhibiting with greater power His curative relation to 
the human soul. 



One of the delicacies in this world is, that when two 
souls come together, and unite with each other, no one 
has a right to meddle with them, to know their most 
blessed intercourse, or to interpret their thoughts to each 
other. They are to be let alone. And when a BOul goes 
up in the enthusiasm of its affianced love to unite itself to 
Jesus Christ, shall not its trust be respected? Shall any- 
thing separate it from Him? No, nothing. It is God 
that surrounds us, it is the eternal Father that rejoices in 

us; and at no time does He rejoice in us more than when 
we are giving our life and our being to Je.»us Christ our 
Saviour. 



THE very word u God " suggests care, kindness, good- 
ness. The very idea of God in His infinity, is infinite 

care, infinite kindness, infinite goodness. We give God 



ROYAL TRUTHS. ^09 

the name of good ; it is only by shortening it that it be- 
comes God, — a vulgarizing almost of the term. 



In the exigences of business — in all cases where men 
are in doubt and perplexity as to what is right and what 
is best, as to what you may do and what you may not do 
— be sure to give the greater advantage to the moral ele- 
ment. If you make a mistake, let it be on the right side. 
It is better that a man should not avail himself of liberties 
that he might take, than that he should avail himself of 
advantages that he should not take. It is better for a 
man to be too careful and scrupulous, than for him to be 
unscrupulous and careless. Men that look at everything 
simply in the light of their own interests, grow narrow, 
mean, and foolish, and at last come to stand in their own 
light. I think there is nothing more foolish in life than 
this kind of selfishness, which really stands in a man's own 
way. I often see men that are so selfish that they can- 
not prosper. Men that settle all questions by reference 
to some higher standards — by benevolence, conscience, 
humanity — will find that these arbiters of duty will 
avail, in the end, not only for spiritual good, but for sec- 
ular good also. 

The broader the pattern which a man is made upon, 
the more will he have it in his power to control the con- 
ditions of success, even in this life. Therefore, let me say 
to every young man, always reason up. In every exi- 
gence reason up. Never reason down, under any circum- 
stances. Never allow yourself to say, " But may I not 
do this ? " Xever say, •• Has not this knot been tied too 
tight ? Is there not too much moral restriction in this 
direction ? " Always make your Christian manhood come 
between you and the endeavor to go down in the scale 



210 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

toward perdition. Do not Bay, " What may I venture ti 
do?" but say, " Lord, help me to rise higher than other 
men are, and to refuse the things that make men low. 
Let it be mine to go from strength to strength, and from 
nobility to nobility, till I become more pure, more just, 
more benevolent, than the customs and laws require me 
to be." 

Men, instead of listening for a moment to this argu- 
ment, say that a person who confines himself to such a 
course of life as I am recommending, cannot be as smart 
as one who does not; but I say he will be smarter. 
Goodness is smarter than baseness. Uprightness has 
more genius, more exeeutiveness, more power, more real 
aptitude for business, than rascality. Give me a broad 
conscience-man, who looks over the field of life with an 
equitable regard for his fellow-men ; who makes their 
interests his interests, because he loves them. Such a 
man has more statesmanship in his conscience than other 
men have in all their sharpness and discernment. Sharp 
men, like sharp needles, break easy, though they pierce 
quick. There is no fallacy more universal or more fatal 
than that which teaches that there is no temper except 
in wickedness ; for I aver that God puts into a man's 
bouI more temper, more executive power, more of the 
elements of success, than the Devil ever did by his crafti- 
ness, or than Mammon ever did by his selfish, wicked ex- 
pedients. 

Now, I should 1)0 ashamed to ask a man to be a Chris- 
tian from motives drawn from the exchequer ; but if it 
be true that godliness is profitable, the city is just the 
place where there are men that want to know it; and I 
d< dare my faith in this doctrine, not merely because God 
teaches it, (though that would be reason enough,) but 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 21] 

because I see it exemplified in life. For these reasons, 
then, I say that a religious life, begun early, is the surest 
road to honor, prosperity, and happiness. 



If I understand the words of Jesus Christ, He says, 
" You had better lose your life than do wrong." If you 
stand where a man says to you, looking with open eye on 
that which is wicked, " You shall do this or forfeit your 
place in my establishment," Christ says, " Forfeit your 
right hand before you do it." And suppose he does kick 
you out, where does he kick you to ? Into the bosom of 
God Almighty's providence. You think of the man who 
gives you permission to sleep under the counter in his 
shop, and to draw one hundred pounds this year, and one 
hundred and twenty-five next year, and deem it worth 
your while to court his favor ; and are you not to regard 
Him who sits on the throne of the universe, and gives 
you your existence, and promises you eternal life ? Are 
you not to regard Him who holds the earth in His hand, 
and gives life to the wicked man that employs you, and 
would pervert you for his own selfish interests ? He de- 
clares, " Give up your eye, your foot, your hand, nay, 
even life itself, rather than consent to do evil. For 
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul ? " 

Now, I say to every young man, Go out of any estab- 
lishment where it is insisted that you shall do wicked 
things, quicker than a shot goes out of a cannon when it 
is fired ; and not only go out of it, but keep out of it : 
unless you made a bargain that when he bought your 
services, he bought you. In that case I have nothing to 
say, — I do not speak to slaves. If, however, you went 
into an office, a manufactory, a carpenter's shop — no 



212 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

matter where — as a man, and engaged your services, no 
one lias any authority to control you in moral things. 
There you Btand a free man. and there you are to pro- 
duce the charter of your liberty, and say," God Almighty 
made me to be Hi- Bon, and .-hall I throw away my son- 
ship ? No ; I will stand for that which is right, though 
life itself shall fail." And I tell you, this is a salt of lire, 
a baptism of blood, which no man can experience without 
coming out a saint; and a man who has experienced it, is 
as much stronger and better than one who has not, as a 
man who is a man is better than one who only pretends 
to be one. 



I say to every man you ought to have a conscience so 
active, so sensitive by daily communion with God, so 
bathed in the sweet ways and meditations of a Christian 
life, that you shall be misled and deceived by no example, 
and by no specious reasoning. A man who has a correct 
TOitch learns to trust it. After he has thoroughly tried 
his faithful servant of the pocket, and knows that through 
months and years it has given him true reports, he places 
great reliance upon it. He may ask the time of the town 
clock, but if it gives a different report from that given by 
hi- watch, he at once says to the clock, "Thou liest." He 
may ask the time of his friend whom he meets in the 
street, and he takes the report of his friend's watch till he 
looks at his own, when, finding that they differ, he .-ay?, 
'•Miiif must he right, for it never deceives me." Every 
man should keep an account of celestial time; and setting 
his own heart and his own conscience by the beats and 
throbs of God Almighty's heart, he should take con 
of, and believe in, no other. He should compare himself 
daily with this standard, and should take no testimony 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 213 

against that, He that has an open face, and looks into 
the open face of God. shall be a child of light, a child of 
liberty, and a child of glory. 



I was living in the West, and waa in straitened circum- 
stances. I think that, for a period of four years, there 
had not been a time when some member of my family 
was not sick from the malaria which prevailed in that 
part of the country. I did not expect or desire to be 
anything except a missionary. I was contented, but 
quite poor, so far as money was concerned. But there 
came a time when it seemed to me that I should be 
ousted from even the humble berth I occupied ; and I 
made up my mind that if I was. I should go to some 
smaller place where my services would be acceptable. 
The reason why I expecred to be ousted was, that I had 
attempted to stand up against the leading men of the 
vicinity where I was. on the slavery question, at a time 
when the people of Indiana did not dare to say that their 
soul was their own. or that the negro's soul was his own. 
It seemed to me that my church would be shut, and that 
I should be deprived of the means on which I depended 
for the support of my family. And I recollect that on a 
certain day. while reflecting upon the unhappy state of 
my affairs, I read this passage. — " Let your conversa- 
tion be without covetousness." — that is. Do not borrow 
trouble about where your salary is coming from. — " and 
be content with such things as ye have." " 'Why, yes," 
I thought. "I have not many things : but I will be con- 
tent with them." And now for the royalty of the reason 
for contentment : ;> For he hath said, I will never leave 
thee nor forsake thee." These words, as I read them, 
seemed as really a message from God to me. as if the 



21-1 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

white form of an angel had spoken to me, saying, " Henry, 
I am sent to tell thee from your God, I will never leave 
thee nor forsake thee. 1 ' And the rest of the | 
this, — -So that we may boldly Bay, The Lord is my 
helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." 
I then thought, u Now, Mr. Elders, shut up the church if 
you have a mind to. I am not afraid of any man that 
lives, since I have this message from my God." It sank 
like a seed into my soul, and it lias never been rooted 
out. If there is any text of the Bible that has been an 
anchor to me, it is that one. I have swung with it 
through many a storm. It has held me a thousand times 
if it has once. I never think of it that it is not to my 
soul like a touch on the keys of a piano. There is always 
music in it to me. " Let your conversation be without 
covetousness." Do not fidget, and worry, and vex your- 
self about how the ends are going to meet. You may be 
sure that they always will meet, though you may not 
always see how they can meet. If they do not meet in 
this life, a man dies ; and then they meet. I used often 
to think, ''If they do their worst, they can only kill me ; 
and I shall thank them for that." When to shove a man 
through a door is to shove him into heaven, you cannot 
do him any great indignity. 



We cannot come to the conviction of the divinity of 
Christ so well by the intellectual and philosophical meth- 
o 1 a- we can by the spiritual and experimental method. 
This latter method is the method of the New Testament ; 
and I think, that in the wisdom of the ages t<> the end of 
the world, it will be found to be the true method. We 
are first to employ Christ by faith in all the offices which 
He sustains to the soul ; and then, I hold, no other argu« 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 215 

ment can produce such a conviction of His substantial 
and glorious divinity, as will come from His effects upon 
the soul. In accepting Christ in all His glorious offices, 
as prophet, priest, and king, we have the best conceivable 
evidence of His divinity. 



What do you suppose Baron Humboldt would have 
been to an Indian boy fifteen years of age, if he had come 
before him with all his astronomic, geometric, and geo- 
graphic knowledge, — with all his scientific knowledge, — 
with all the boundless wealth of his great mind ? Why, 
the largeness of Humboldt's being, his power of thought, 
everything that made him the philosopher that he was, 
would have fairly eclipsed the poor Indian boy. You 
might as well bring the sun down before my eyes, blazing 
me blind, to give me a conception of that mighty orb, as 
to bring the fulness of such a mind as Humboldt's before 
the mental vision of an undeveloped Indian boy, to give 
him a conception of that mind. It is dark where there is 
too much light, as well as where there is too little. If 
being is to help being, there must be some proportion 
between the being helping and the being to be helped. 

Now, if it had pleased God to come to earth in all the 
fulness of His glory, man could not, according to the dec- 
laration of Scripture, have looked upon Him and lived. 
He not only could not have understood Him, but he 
could not have borne the shock of contact with Him. 
Christ therefore veiled Himself, laid aside the glory of 
the Father which belonged to Him, to such a degree as 
to bring Himself within the ordinary reaches of the hu- 
man mind. 



Christ comes to every man, and demands of him love* 



21G ROYAL TRUTHS. 

He presents Himself in every aspect in which a greater 
mind can be presented to a lower; He presents Himself 

as the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, your per- 
sonal friend, and your elder brother; He embodies in 
Himself every tender relationship of which we can con- 
ceive; and He asks, He claims as His right, that you 
should love Him. 

If love were a sealed fountain, if you had never 
learned to love, you would he less to blame for neglect- 
ing to love Christ. But among the things taught ear- 
liest is love ; among the things most experienced in life, 
is love ; and among the things remembered latest, is love. 
When the child comes into life, almost the first thing he 
does is to send out his heart in trust and confidence and 
love ; and though the objects of his primal affection are 
limited and imperfect, they are sufficient to excite in him 
the dormant spark of love. But when it is the infinite 
Creator; when it is the glorious God; when it is He that 
for you has laid down His own life; when it is He, 
rather, that has taken it up again, and lives to intercede 
for you; when it is He that Bends you, day by day, fresh 
glories, and that, night after night, surrounds you with 
mercies; when it is He that through all the periods of 
your life watches over you with most tender solicitude 
and scrupulous fidelity; when it is lie that outvies all 
other affections, and showers His own upon you more 
copiously than clouds ever rained drops, or seasons ever 
gave forth fruit; when it i< He that comes to you, and 
Bays, u My son, give me thine heart," — what will you 
do with this JesUS that yearns for your Love? Will you 

love Him ? 



Did you ever reflect that thare is not, it? the whole 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 217 

New Testament, one caution or guard against our over- 
trusting and over-exalting Christ? You never would send 
a child to a person under circumstances such as those 
under which we are sent to Christ, if we are not to trust 
in Him, and exalt Him. You never w^ould dream of send- 
ing a child into the presence of one in every way calcu- 
lated to Avin its affections and confidence, unless it w r as 
right and proper that it should cherish affection for, and 
repose confidence in, that person. Suppose that children 
were to be placed under the charge of a teacher by whom 
would be presented to them all that was admirable in 
character, all that was winning in affection, all that was 
stimulating and glittering in imagination, that which drew 
about itself every one of the tendrils of sprouting life in 
them, when it was known that this was only professional, 
and that they were in the end to *be wrenched and torn 
from the object to which their hearts had become so firmly 
bound, as the husk is wrenched and torn from the corn. 
What w r ould be thought of such a course in the case of a 
teacher and his pupils ? 

Now behold Christ. What being can be conceived of 
that would be more likely to arouse aspiration, to catch 
the longing heart, to win the affection and the confidence ? 
Consider what must be the result if we are brought under 
the influence of such a being. And if it is wrong, if it is 
idolatrous for us to love Christ, and depend upon Him, 
how cruel it is that, we should be placed in such relations 
to Him that we are drawn to Him and led to throw our- 
selves upon Him, and obliged to say, rt Our life is hid 
with Christ in Gocl. Without Him, we are nothing. In 
Him, we are all tilings. He is our w T ay, our hope, our 
light, our bright and morning star," and receive not one 
word of caution, not one monitory remark, not one hint 
10 



218 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

or admonition that it is not worth our while to trust in 
Him, or that it is wicked to worship Him; not even so 

much as this: Be careful that you do not put the crown 
on His head, lest you cheat the eternal Father! And if 
it is not right for as to love Him, and trust Him, and 
worship Him, then, instead of a Saviour, we have a rav- 
ening, destroying being in the Christ of the New Testa- 
ment If I may put my being on Him; if I may feel 
that lie has Buffered for my sins, that lie has borne my 
sorrows, and that my life is grafted into Him ; and if I 
may pour out everything in me of thought, and zeal, and 
worship toward Him, — then blessed be God for Him; 
but if it is wicked for me to do these things, then I can- 
not thank God for Him. God should not have added to 
the misery of our condition by giving us such a being, 
and then making it wicked for us to worship Him. 

But I am not afraid to worship Christ. I will trust 
myself to worship Him. I will trust those dearest to me 
to worship Him. In the arms of Christ's love nothing 
shall hurt you. Love on, trust on, worship on. Let go 
your most ardent devotions toward Him. There is no 
Divine Jealousy. The anxieties that afflict the sons of 
earth in their ideas of God, never exist in heaven. Christ 
is the soul's bread, — eat ye that hunger. He is the 
water of life, — drink ye that thirst. lie is the soul's end, 
— aim at Him. lie i> the soul's supreme glory, — yield 
to every outgush of joy and enthusiasm of worship that 
Bprings up in your heart toward Him. Those that are 
in heaven how down before Him, and ascribe blessing, 
and honor, and glory, and power, to Him that sitteth upon 
the throne and to the Lamb, forever and ever Let «w 
not, then, fear to worship Christ. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 219 

Your honors here may serve you for a time, as it were 
for an hour, but they will be of no use to you beyond this 
world. Nobody will have heard a word of your honors 
in the other life. Your glory, your shame, your ambi- 
tions, and all the treasures fo v which you push hard and 
sacrifice much will be like wreaths of smoke. For these 
things, which you mostly seek, and for which you spend 
your life, only tarry with you while you are on this side 
of the flood. 



When a man, standing before a magnificent work of 
art, or some wonderful phenomenon of nature, — somo 
rugged mountain, some thunderous fall, like that of 
Niagara, or some beautiful landscape valley, — finds his 
taste so waked up that he loses command of himself, and 
breaks forth into an ecstasy of admiration, his sensations 
are transcendent. 

But when we stand, not before unspeaking canvas, or 
inert mountains, or senseless water, but in the presence 
of some hero, some man that has stood among men 
nobler than the noblest, and truer than the truest, and 
has carried the fate of a nation in his hand without be- 
traying it, how grand a thing is a true man, that carries 
in his life and conduct something of God ! And who is 
there that is so unfortunate as not to know what a glori- 
ous thing it is to go out in admiration, almost in worship, 
toward such a man ? 

But what, then, ought our feelings to be when we 
stand, not before a man, nor before a mere spark, but 
before the everlasting God ; when we stand before that 
Being who created the innumerable orbs of which this 
earth is but a specimen ; when we stand before that Being 
whose wavs generations and ages have sought in vain 



220 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

to find out; when we stand before that Being of whose 
Jove all the affections of father, and mother, and husband 
and wife, and child, and brother, and sister, and friend, and 
lover, are but faint intimations, and of whose attributes the 
divine qualities of men arc but the slightest hints ? And 
when he comes as our maker and preserver, and the 
author of the eternal inheritance of 1 diss prepared for 
us, and asks that we experience this rapture of admira- 
tion for Him, how reasonable is His request, and how 
blessed to us ought to be the prerogative and privilege of 
making Him the object of our highest worship! 



To me it seems, and has always seemed, very strange 
that there should be a kind of hesitation at worshipping 
Christ by those who believe that their ideas of the Father 
are derived from Him. " JNo man hath seen God at any 
time ; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the 
Father, hath declared Him." If you take a given num- 
ber of qualities, and lift them up, and call them God, you 
worship, not the name, but the qualities ; and if you take 
the same qualities, and lift them up, and call them Christ, 
you still ought to worship the qualities, and not the name. 
There are many persons who do not hesitate to lift up 
the qualities which they see in Christ, and call them 
u Father," and pray to them, and worship them, who 
have a superstition about praying to these same qualities 
and worshipping them when they are called u Christ" 
lint they are the same, whether you call them u Father" 

or "Christ." All that you know of GrOd, and all that 
you have in distinction from the heathen world, has come 

to you through the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is what 
you Bee in Him, and though you may worship it under 
the name of "Father," it is Christ that you worship. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 221 

Why not, then, worship Him under His own name ? We 
need not consult our fear, we may consult our longing, as 
to whether we shall lean upon the Saviour. 



Christ says that in every burdened hour He is yo^r 
staff; that in every peril He is your rescuer ; that in ev- 
ery temptation He is the gate through which you are to 
escape ; that in every sickness He is your physician. 
Yea, He stands in the portal of the grave itself, and de- 
clares that He has power over death. " Because I live, 
ye shall live also." He takes the very keys of the other 
life, and opens the door thereof, and stands the universal 
Saviour, and with a voice like that of one bora to com- 
mand, and clothed with the supremacy of Divine power, 
He says, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." 

Consider what scope there is in these representations 
of Christ. All our wants for time and for eternity are 
made to point toward and centre in Him, as their ever- 
lasting supply. Suppose, then, instead of hunting texts, 
and attempting to prove by force of logic that He is abso- 
lute God, we should take that other process, which con- 
sists in every day attempting to employ Him as He is 
presented to be employed in the New Testament ; sup- 
pose our life should settle this matter ; suppose we should 
find in our personal experience evidence of His divinity, 
— what would be the effect ? If He feeds you, if He 
quenches your thirst, if He wakes your imagination, if 
He inspires your sweetest thoughts and feelings, if He 
sustains you, if He is your vital breath and your strength 
here and your salvation hereafter, and you acknowledge 
what He does, and accept Him as what He is, then, I ask, 
can any worship be higher than that which you offer to 



2'22 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Him? Can you reserve anything better than you have 
given to Him ? 

Tin: angels Bang, " Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace"; but the angels were prophets. They 
raw through a long tube, and the peace which they Baw 

was the bright crystal gate of the future. Christ at the 
other end of the tube, said, "I came not to send peace, 
but a sword." He came to send tumult, revolution, war. 
And why ? Because He meant to have peace. That is 
just what He meant to have. 

Suppose when a man goes to make a violin you follow 
him, saying, u He must, of course, have music at every 
step." When in the forest he cuts the timber, you hear 
the blows of the axe, and the crash of the falling tree, and 
you say, " That is what you call a musical instrument, is 
it?" Yes, that is the beginning of it. And when the 
saw rips through the log, when the plane glides over the 
board, and when the file and rasp are brought to bear 
upon it, the sounds that greet your ear are harsh and un- 
musical. All the processes by which you make the sound- 
ing-board are accompanied with disagreeable noises. And 
even when it is finished, it does not produce pleasing 
sounds till it has been tuned. And have you ever heard 
anything more unearthly than the scream of a violin 
string when it is being screwed up ? How it yells and 
yelp- ! But when the instrument is tuned, a Pagani&i 
or an Ole Bull will take it up, and upon it discourse the 
test music. 

Christ did eome for peace, hut the process of work- 
ing it out is like sawing timber, or like screwing up the 
string of a violin. It is not meant that there shall be 
pf^ace till there is a consummation of purity ; till an ad- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 223 

justment has taken place inside of every man ; till the re- 
lations of men are adjusted to their outward life; till men 
are adjusted to their fellow-men, and the vast multitude 
are chorded for God's choral harmonies. Therefore you 
need not look for peace right away. Peace is not going 
to dawn very soon, if there is to be no peace till there is 
perfection in the individual. 



In a man's head there is an up and a down. The 
upper and the lower faculties reside there. And every 
vote that is taken in the mind is carried by a majority of 
the ruling forces ; not by a majority of the faculties, but 
by a majority of the riding forces. Just as long as a 
man is not in danger of changing from bad to good, 
of going from wrong to right, just so long is he allowed 
to think and meditate as much as he pleases about it. 
And therefore the higher faculties of a man's mind are 
like prisoners — good men — confined up stairs in a great 
castle. Veneration, an admirable fellow, walks up and 
down the apartment, and talks about the beauty of 
worship ; the sanctity of religion ; the nobleness of 
prostrating one's self before God. Imagination, hearing 
Veneration preach in such a beautiful manner, gets up, 
and begins to talk about the glories of the eternal sphere. 
Yea, it flies thither, and sees the very battlements of 
heaven, its pearly gates, and its walls of many precious 
stones ; and in ecstasy of joy, it comes back with seraphic 
intelligence from that blessed abode. Conscience, that 
always sits like a chief-justice on the bench, pronounc- 
ing judicial decisions, talks about duty, about right and 
wrong, and fills the other prisoners with excellent views 
of truth and rectitude. Each one of the higher faculties 
having spoken in a way to inspire a yearning for liberty, 



224 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

they take a vote, and decide that they will break away 
from their confinement. "Agreed" says Veneration, 
"Til go"; and Ideality says, "I'll go"; and Con- 
science .-ays, ''I'll go"; and Faith says, M I '11 go"; 
and Love says, " I '11 go " ! Accordingly, they all start, 
and the first thing they meet is the bull-dog. Temper. 
He says, " No, you won't"; and Pride, the jailer, says, 
"No, you won't"; and greedy Avarice, the Bentinel, 
standing and pushing in double bolts, says, " No you 
won't." And by watch-dogs, and jailers, and sentinels, 
they are ignominiously driven back to their cell, to look 
out of the window, and think again ! 

How often does a man, on Sunday, sit in the upper- 
rooms of his mind, and think of glorious things that he 
means to do. Veneration is all right, Conscience is all 
right, Hope is all right, Faith is all right ; and they Bay, 
" God, and divine purity, and true manhood, and noble- 
ness, — we are for those things: let us try to-morrow 
to live for them." To-morrow comes, and the first stop 
the man takes, " Bow wow," says bull-dog, Bargain, right 
before him. The next step he takes he is confronted by 
that old tyrant, Party. Then in succession he comes 
upon Partnership, Social Pleasure, Custom, and Habit. 
Old Adam, multiform, briarean, CTOS/36S his path at every 
turn. And he does not get a vote till the top of the head 
and the bottom of the head have both voted ; and the 
bottom carries it, usually. 

NOT golden veins in mountains, not fiiamunas in the 
Bands, nor precious stones, not treat>urei wLicu are hepped 
up in cities, nor the thing- which minister to the Benses or 
to bodily ease or comfort, are best Tuey are second best 
They ait useful if they serve ; tin 7 are evil if they rul* 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 225 

For tLe world is God's nursery. Here He brings up His 
children. And, as in our houses all things are good, — - 
pictures, books, carpets, furniture, the table and the couch, 
— if they aid us to rear well our children, and are good 
but for that ; as our children are themselves the chief 
treasures to us, and their character the chief part of them- 
selves, so is it in God's great household-globe, on which 
we dwell. We are to despise nothing as if the being tran- 
sient or physical were a reason for contempt. We are to 
treasure all things, — only we are to measure their value 
by their relation to our higher nature. 



The cradle empty blesses us more than the cradle 
filled. Therefore if I had had my way, how much leaner 
I should have been ; how much less I should have been 
built up in affection ; how much more deficient I should 
have been in faith ! But against wish, and against strong 
crying and bitter tears, God held on His way, and took 
one, and two, and many ; and I bless His name. I am 
not good, but I am better. And that which I could not 
see then, is very plain to me now. For each of the tears 
that dropped has become a sentence, and the literature 
which they form is as the interpretation of the wisdom of 
God in His administration in earthly things. 



If you go into the great manufactories at Lowell and 
Lawrence, that which you see is that which you never 
see elsewhere ; and that which you see elsewhere is what 
you almost never see there. You see there, not colors, 
but dirty dye-vats ; wool rather than thread, or thread 
rather than fabrics. Instead of seeing rolls of finished 
carpeting or cloth, you hear the rattling of looms, spin- 
ning-jennies, and other machinery. These things, which 
10* o 



226 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

absorb your attention, you leave behind you, when you 
go out; whereas it is in New York, in London, in the 
great commercial mart, that you Bee the fabric which is 
produced by them. 

Now, this world is a great rattling manufactory, and all 
these physical things are but the stationary engines and 
looms. These arc the things that men never carry wkh 
them from this world. And yet, how important they are ! 
Our life, as it were, is placed in a loom, and woven by 
these things. It rolls up, and is hidden as fast as il is 
woven ; and it is to be taken out of the loom only when 
we leave this world. We shall see the pattern of it only 
when we abandon the things which act upon us here* 



I preach the Gospel just as my Master gave it to me. 
He told me that it should be a sword, and I am bound 
that it shall be. He said it should be fire, and it does set 
men on fire. You cannot find anything in the Gospel that 
makes for peace when men are wicked. As long as lies 
are told, so long every word of Christian truth is an 
cutioner of lies, that ferrets them out and visits summary 
punishment on them. A- long as dishonesties arc ri 
long every honesty of God's Word is ( iriff Bent 

out to arre-t them. As long as there is cruelty, bo long 
every humanity of the Gospel i- God's angel Bent like 
Gabriel abroad to defend the right and Braite the \\ t 
As long as men are corrupt, so long the Gospel is God's 
firebrand to burn out of them the dross, leaving but the 
pure gold. 

I\ all the abysses of God's nature, in all the infinite out- 
Btretchings of His being, in all that wondrous personality 
that fills heaven and eternity, in all that incomprehensible 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 227 

magnitude that we call God, what extraordinary capacity 
there must be of loving ! How strange must be the con- 
ception of an infinite God, higher than the heavens, and 
broader than the earth, upon every one of whose attri- 
butes, upon every one of whose affections, we put the 
term "infinite," — a term expressing that which is bound 
less, limitless, exhaustless ! 



Did you ever see men made in this world ? They had 
no great wisdom ; they had no great honor ; they had 
no great heroism ; they had no great patience ; they had 
no great meekness ; they had no great wealth of love. 
But they had a certain muck-wisdom ; they knew how to 
thrust their hand in where dirt was to be moulded ; they 
knew how to amass property ; they knew how to con- 
struct ships and houses; they had a kind of ferreting eye, 
a sort of weasel sagacity ; they were keen and sharp ; 
they were said to be prosperous, thriving men ; they 
were being built up according to the estimation of men. 
Give a man a thousand pounds, and you have laid the 
foundation on which to build him, — you have got his 
feet built ; give him five thousand, and you have built him 
up to the knees ; give him ten thousand, and you have 
built him to the loins ; give him twenty thousand, and 
you have built him above the heart ; give him fifty thou- 
sand, and he is made all over. Fifty thousand pounds 
will build a man in this world. One hundred thousand 
makes a splendid fellow, as the world goes. The great 
trouble, however, is, that although the materials may not 
be very costly as God looks upon them, men find it diffi- 
cult to build themselves in this way. Besides they are 
very easily unbuilt. Where a man is merely what he 
owns, it does not take long to annihilate him. There are 



223 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

thousands and thousands of men of whom if you tak* 
away their houses, and ships, and lands, and fiscal skill, 
and such other qualities belonging to them as they will 

not want in heaven, and cannot carry to heaven, there will 
not be enough left to represent them there, of righteous- 
. and godliness, and faith, and love, and patience, 
and meekness, and such like qualities. They have used 
all these qualities up for fuel for their machine. It has 
been their business in life to sacrifice probity that th< y 
might be rich ; that they might gain power and influence ; 
that they might make their hold on this world broader 
and stronger. And if they cannot carry forth these 
things, which have been the objects to the attainment of 
which they have devoted all their energies, what is left 
for them to go out of life with ? You see not only single 
specimens, but whole ranks of these dwarfed, insect i 
of men, patting each other on the shoulder, registering 
each other, weighing each other, and speaking of each 
other as u our first men," ,k our largest men," u our influen- 
tial men," "our strong men"; and yet, if you were to take 
away from them that of which the grave will divest them, 
you could not find them, even with a microscope ! 



Kvil is eternal in the sight of God, unless it be 
checked and cured. Sin, like a poisonous weed, refl 
itself, and becomes eternal by reproduction. Now God 
3 upon the human race in the light of these truths. 

And tell me what other attribute of God, what other in- 
flexion of His character, is so noble and sublime as this, 
— IIh gentleness? I low wonderful has been its dura- 
tion ; how deep itfl nature; how exquisite its toucl 
how rich its fruit ! What assurance does it bring to our 
hope! How boundless is the scope it opens to our eye 1 



ROYAL TRJTHS. 229 

How wonderful is the combination of traits in His dispo- 
sition ! It was because the lion and the lamb first lay- 
down together in the heart of God. that the prophet de- 
clared that they should yet do it on earth ! 



He who unites himself to any great idea or truth which 
God has established, may be sure that he will go forth 
from conquering to conquer ; not by reason of any might 
or skill in himself, but because he is united to God, and 
is a laborer together 'with Him. The man that adopts 
any divinely-appointed truth, no matter what the world 
thinks of it, rides in God's chariot, and has God for his 
charioteer. Xo man rides so high, and in such good 
company, as the man that allies himself to a truth that 
God loves and men hate. Where a thing is true, and 
just, and pure, and noble, and right, let law say what it 
pleases, let institutions say what they please, let men say 
what they please, let the world say what it pleases, do 
you cast yourself into that thing without heed, without 
calculation, without fear, and you will be in the hollow 
of the hand of God Almighty, and will be on the sure 
road to victory, since He himself is the all-victorious 
One. 



I thixk the most piteous thing in this world is never 
written. I have read many a poem, and novel, and tale, 
that made me cry, — and whether they were true or not, 
it was all the same ; but of all affecting poems and novels 
and tales. I think life itself is the most affecting, — com- 
mon life, just as it turns out in the world. And when I 
go out to measure men. I say to myself, as one after an- 
other they pass before me, " Suppose that man should 
drop out of life, what would become of him?'' It pains 



230 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

me to see how worthless men are, — to see how men 
stand in life, and what they are. I am sometimes called 
to perform the burial-service over men of whom I could 
not say a word, and of whom, if I had expressed what I 
felt, I should have said, u I bless God that lie is gone. 
The world is better off for his having been taken out of 
it." Look at human life, break through all the sentimen- 
tal ways of society, weigh men as you weigh gold, un- 
mixed with dirt or quartz or any other substance, take 
men up and see how much there is of them that really 
answers the end of the life to come, and how many there 
are that, dying, would not be missed. How few there 
are that, dying, would make the community feel poor! 
How few there are that, being dead, would yet speak ! 



Without fault of their own, persons of other countries, 
being driven from their homes by revolutions, flee to 
Britain or America. They were educated to be gentle- 
men, in their own lands ; and being born noblemen, they 
had some seeming right to be educated as gentlemen, — 
that is, to live a lazy life, and have others support them. 
But driven forth from their seeming fate, how can they 
Bubsist? They cannot teach, for they cannot speak the 
language. They cannot work, for they have learned no 
trade. They have only learned to open their mouth and 
take the food ready to drop into it. Of all miserable 
men, I think they are the most miserable who have been 
educated intellectually, and who have line tastes and 
Btrong emotive powers, but who have no sort of ability 
to «_r<'t along when they are thrown out of the circum- 
stances in which they were educated, and are obliged 
under new circumstances, to Bhift for themselves. I hava 
seen very many such men, — men built exquisitely tor 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 231 

mortification and suffering, and apparently for nothing 
else. But how dreadful, compared with the misadjust- 
ment of these men, is that of those who, having striven to 
make themselves something in this life, die and go into 
the other life to find that they do not know its business ; 
that they cannot speak its language ; that they have no 
faculties educated which have respect to their relations 
there ; that those faculties which they have educated 
have no function there ; and that those which they need 
to use there, have not been trained ! Such men will stand 
fools and foolish forever ! The life that is substantial they 
have thrown away. Their education, instead of being for 
the other life, has been for this life alone. 



God will never receive us upon any invoice sent from 
this world. Every man is to be reappraised, unpacked, 
examined, mostly thrown away ; and that which is least 
esteemed here is to be measured most and judged most, 
and the reverse ; so that the last shall be first, and the 
first shall be last. The ten thousand who go without a 
procession to the grave, whom no man knows to have 
died and no man misses, have their procession on the 
other side, and armies in triumph shout them home ; 
while men who are followed to the grave by a long pro- 
cession, who are buried with much state, and who fill 
the w r orld for a time with the sound of their fall, are re- 
ceived on the other side silently and without procession. 
And happy is it for them if they do not rise to shame 
and everlasting contempt. 



If a man is righteous and godly, if a man's life consists 
in soul-treasure, no matter what may befall him, his 
nature cannot be touched ; it will ever shire on. If he 



232 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

is deprived of his wondly surroundings, it is all the more 

affecting and influential. When a truly great man has 
these things taken away from him, it i- as when a 
cocoa-nut has the rind taken off; it is as when a grain 
has the husk taken off. Take a man who i- good and 
noble and true, and remove from him everything through 
which he has stood and glowed and radiated, and men 
will bow down to him, and say, "That is virtue! That 
dliness! That is God in the soul !" And the man 
will be more known, more felt, more revered, when stand- 
ing merely in his own intrinsic wealth, than when clothed 
with the trappings of this world. 



The whole globe, it seems to me, is a sacrament ; and 
time is full of the most solemn lessons and the most mo- 
mentous truths. And yet we let day after day and year 
after year pass over our head, and our constant thought 
is, — what? That the winter is severe; that the day is 
inclement ; that the rain incommodes our party, or mars 
our pleasure. We sit and judge of the various events of 
the seasons with reference to our selfish convenience. 
We tret, and fume, and complain of God'fl phenomena, 
judging them by our wishes, and without thanksgiving 
or admiration, or gratitude, or reverence, hut full of Bpite 
and peevishness and ill-feeling. 



MEN are seeking for only this life. A Bhort life it is, 

and exceedingly imperfect and rudimentary, at 1 est It 
i- like a road, which is good lor tra v rllin«_ r , but poor for 
Bleeping. This world is magnificent for strangers and 
pilgrims, but miserable i'^v residents. The wy moment 

a man carries himself BS though this were his home, and 

begins to build as though he would live here, that moment 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 233 

the worH is not a fit place for a temporary residence for 
him. It is only when a man considers this world as a 
school-house, and not a dwelling, that it will serve the 
purpose it was intended to serve. The academy is not a 
place to live in. We go into it that in due time we may 
come out prepared for a higher sphere. What the anvil 
and the blacksmith-shop are to the sword of the warrior, 
that this world and its instrumentalities are to us. We 
are forged here to be used hereafter. We are to receive 
our perfected selves, and to come to the fruition of our- 
selves, only when God shall open the door of this world, 
and let us out. We are like a ship that, being built, lies 
high and dry, and whose sea-going qualities cannot be 
known till she is launched upon the ocean. We do not 
know our own powers. When at death we are launched 
upon the sea of eternal life, then we shall know what we 
are. 



Do you not know that the Devil never makes a rout in 
a man's heart so long as he bears undisputed sway there ? 
It is only when it is attempted to throw him out, that he 
shows the man how strong a hold he has upon him. He 
lets him talk, and say, "I can rid myself of this habit 
whenever I please," and such like things. It rather 
pleases him to have him talk so. But when he under- 
takes to rid himself of the habit, he lets him know that 
he cannot do it so easily as he supposed. 



" Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope 
set before us, wmich hope we have as an anchor." These 
figures do not succeed each other, but they intermingle. 
It may be a violation of rhetorical rules, but it is the ful- 
filment of a rich imagination thus to commingle figures ; 



234 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

for no one who is apt to see things in symbols and bj 
pictures, but knows that for the same thought there will 
often arise several distinct figures striving to represent it, 

and that the mind will, in its more fervid moods, tab- both 
figures or many of them in part. A fervid imagination 
uses figures just a- freely a- words, and as we often change 
words or inflect a sentence from the very overflow of feel- 
ing as the progress of thought develops in our mind, so is 
it with figures and illustrations. In this case I think there 
is a sublime unity in these figures that is not often Been. 
It is as if the apostle had >i^n the soul beset witli great 
troubles like storms. Doubts and temptations till the air 
black ; the poor driven soul flies for shelter, the very wind 
drives it; the peril of the elements and their terrible 
threat speed it to some covert, and so it makes for the 
refuge. And then, in the universality of his imagination, 
the apostle sees the storm not alone upon the land, but 
upon the sea ; the mariners are swept with the wind and 
dadied with the overwhelming waves, and for his peril 
the anchor is the refuge. The storm is common to both 
figures: the refuge is for the land, the anchor for the b< a ; 
and both of them mean one thing, — Security. For what 
a Strong house is in the one sphere, that a sure and Btead- 
fasl anchor is in the Other. 



What strange creatures men are! They bow down 
and bend under God's mysterious dealings; and when 
they find their hands empty, their hearts full, their planfl 

frustrated, their wishes crossed, and their life burdensome, 
thev eo mourning and wondering why it should be so; 
and then they go back to the household anil pursue n 

their BODS and daughters the same policy that has been 

© I J 

pursued uj on them, and marvel that the Little child can- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 235 

not understand that it is for its good that it is denied 
things that it desires, and that it has put upon it things 
that it dislikes ; and why it cannot understand that life is 
a unit, and that its welfare in the future depends upon its 
right management in the present ! They reproduce in 
their dealings with their children God's dealings with 
them, and are yet forever wondering why God deals 
with them as He does, and why their children do not un- 
derstand that their administration over them is beneficial 
and wise ! 



The nature of a seed is such that when it is thrown 
into the ground it unfolds itself without culture, without 
any exterior influence beyond the light and air and soil, 
to be just that thing which it was meant to be. Every 
flower come3 to its own nature ; and although culture 
may make it larger and finer, yet it expresses the radical 
idea involved in the seed. It is so with every insect, and 
every animal. But man is not a creature that, according 
to this analogy, being born into the world opens and 
develops himself to that which God meant manhood to 
be. When left in the most favorable conditions, man 
does not, and will not, so develop himself; for that which 
is required to make manhood is not in him. There were 
elements left out of the nature of man without which that 
nature never can come to its perfection. For, as in fruits 
sugar comes from the sun, so in man grace comes from 
the Sun of righteousness, working in us, and elaborating 
the things that we need. But they are never wrought 
out by any process that takes place by the natural facuJ- 
*>es in the soul. 



As in a piano two chords are united to make one sound, 



236 IiOYAL TRUTHS. 

and they both respond to one stroke of the hammer, so in 

Christ His own will and the will of His Father were 
united to make one parallel motive, and they both re- 
sponded to the action of one nature. There was no dis- 
tinction between them. To please, to honor, to expound 
and declare, to serve, to love His Father, was that which 
gave Him rest and comfort. Without this meat of doing 
the will of the Father, His life would have been empty, 
and His soul forever hungry. 



It is a noble view, this, to take of Christ's life, — 
namely, that it was spontaneous ; that it had calm zeal 
and the willingness of enthusiasm. It was not borne as 
a load; it was performed as a joy. "Who for the joj 
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the 
shame." I know that Christ is predicted as a man of 
sorrows, and acquainted with grief; yet it is the xevy 
wonder and mystery, that up through every sorrow His 
heart sent such a flame of love and joy that affliction be- 
came the very fuel of gladness. I think that our views 
of the Saviour are perfectly destructive to all respect 
even. I think the painters' ideas of Christ, as repre- 
sented in materia] Buffering, are simply vulgar and infer- 
nal ; and if I had the power I would take cwry one of 
those disgracing Canvases and rip them and burn them, 
that make such a masquerade of the divinity of Christ in 
His suffering state. For do we not know that there are 
in our own house- children who, for their father's -ike, 

will bear Buffering, and not shed a tear? and are they 
more than Christ? Are there not parents and compan- 
ions that will carry troubles vehement, for tie sake of 

those round about them, and make them SO luminous that 
none -hall see them ? And is it not woman's peculiar 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 237 

office to walk a martyr, and yet wear a face of joy and 
hope and radiancy, so much does her affection overcome 
and quite subdue material suffering and lower forms of 
disappointment ? And how many men carry a world of 
trouble for the sake of their country and their fellow-men, 
and yet stand prophets of peace and joy themselves ! 
How many confessors and martyrs have borne inexpres- 
sible torments for the sake of truth, singing while the 
flame itself was scorching their flesh, their soul beating 
down the nerve and overcoming the body, and making 
them triumphant over physical and mental suffering by 
the power of higher feelings which quite adumbrated and 
put out the lower ones ! And must we conceive of Christ 
as one who crouched under suffering ? Was He the only 
one that did not know how to make clouds carry colors ; 
or all of whose clouds were lead-color or black ? Was 
He one who bore suffering with weakness ? Was He one 
that was overcome and cast clown by suffering ? No, the 
glory of Christ was this : that He accepted His mission 
with such cheerfulness and gladness and enthusiasm ; that 
He did the will of God with such alacrity ; that though 
He was pre-eminently, and above all that ever lived, a 
man of suffering, yet He counted it a joy to suffer; that 
He was an overmastering sufferer. 



That Christ loved, longed for the personal presence of 
His disciples, was very patient with their rudeness, ran to 
their help with more love, when they fell into sin, than 
before, pitied and excused their infirmities ; that Christ 
mourned over those whom He condemned, and sadly 
denounced Jerusalem, amid tears ; that He loved birds, 
flowers, children ; that He loved to sit at twilight under 
the olive-trees on the mountain over against Jerusalem, 



238 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and commune with His followers of the day's experience 
that He loved the solitude of the mountain, and prayed 
through the night; that He would gently Bteal upon the 
evening walk to Emmaus, and talk Like a stranger to 
those whom lie entirely know, and hesitate at the door, 
to draw forth a more earnest welcome, — in short, if tl 
ten thousand shades of thought, and feeling, and conduct, 
that give individuality and personality to Christ, also in- 
terpret the disposition of God, how near do they bring 
Him to our tastes, our affections, our imaginations, and 
our reason ! I love to carry (}\ery act of Chrisl right 
home to Tlim as very God ; and to say, This tells me 
how God feels, and what He is, for it is God himself! 



There are two ways in which the word nature unfor- 
tunately is employed. One represents the characteristic 
use which we make of ourselves. That we call nature ; 
but only when the word is used in its perverted sense. 
A man's nature is spoiled in that sense. But there is a 
higher and prior use of the word, — namely, that which 
represents the soul and the faculties as God created them, 
and meant that they should he. Now, I hold that the 
original nature of man was to love God and Berve Ilim; 
that that is the secret of harmony in the soul ; that any 
other theory by which you attempt to reconcile man to 
himself on earth will fail; and that the only way i*<>v a 
man to have the full possession of tin- powers and forces 
of life, is that in which he is most addicted to love and 
trust in God. 



THE faculty of veneration is itself to be educated into 
Christ, and every one of its oflices is to be made Chris- 
tian. For, according to the law of Nature, fear and 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 239 

dread are the handmaids of worship. Worship should 
be festive ; but ever since the ascetic element entered it, 
it has been the darkest and most dreaded thing possible. 
Men have symbolized it in their churches. Stone above, 
stone below, and stone on either hand ! Darkness in the 
roof, and darkness in the window ! Churches have been 
crypts. It would seem as though men had drawn their 
conceptions of the sanctuary from the places of worship 
of the earlier Christians who were forced to worship 
under ground. Cathedrals and churches have been dimly 
lighted ; and the little light that has come into them has 
come through paint and ground glass, in a way that has 
misinterpreted God's sunlight. And men have entered 
them shuddering, and on tiptoe, as if the presence of 
God was to be dreaded ; have bowed down as if to wor- 
ship Him was the most terrible thing in the world ; have 
risen up scarcely daring to whisper ; and have hurried 
out as if they had been disembodied spirits, rather than 
warm-hearted men of flesh and blood. The conception 
of worship has been sombre and dark. It has been 
heathen ; for the conception of worship in Christ's time 
was as light as the canopy of heaven. A most noble 
doctrine of Christian life was that which the Saviour 
taught when He declared that whatever proceeded from 
any heart God ward, was true worship ; and that not in 
Jerusalem, nor in the mountain of Samaria, nor in any one 
place, but wherever a heart went out to God, was accept- 
able worship. In that great teaching Christ showed us 
that worship is to be Christianized. We are in the 
bondage of old superstition, and the worship of nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine churches in a thousand is yet tinged 
with the sombreness illustrative of the heathen element 
of fear. The lightness, the gayety, the cheer of true wor- 



240 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

ship, is but little known among men. What the hilarity 
of children is. breaking away from masters and Bchools, 

and romping home to overpower the household with joy, 
such is to be the worship of God's children. The name 
of Father ought not to make any man tremble that is a 
child. 



Sometimes, in dark caves, men have gone to the edge 
of nnspeaking precipices, and, wondering what was the 
depth, have cast down Fragments of rock, and listened for 
the report of their fall, that they might judge how deep 
that blackness was; and listening! — still listening! — 
no sound returns! no sullen splash, no clinking stroke as 
of rock against rock, — nothing but silence, utter silence ! 
And so I stand upon the precipice of life. I sound the 
depths of the other world with curious inquiries. But 
from it comes no echo, and no answer to my questions. 
No analogies can grapple and bring up from the depths 
of the darkness of the lost world the probable truths. 
No philosophy has line and plummet long enough to 
sound the depths. There remains for us only the few 
authoritative and solemn words of God. These declare 
that the bliss of the righteous is everlasting; and with 
equal directness and simplicity they declare that the 
doom of the wicked is everlasting. 

The incorrigibly wicked, the deliberately impenitent, 
have nothing to hope in the future, it" they Be1 aside the 

light and the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ 
And therefore it i< that I make haste, with an inconceiv- 
able ardor, to persuade you to be reconciled to your Go L 
J hold up before you that God who loves the >inners and 
abhor- sin ; who loves gOOdne8S with infinite fervor, and 
breathes it upon those who put their trust in Him ; who 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 241 

makes all the elements His ministering servants ; who 
sends years, and weeks, and days, and hours, all radiant 
with benefaction, and, if we would but hear their voice, 
all pleading the goodness of God as an argument of re- 
pentance and of obedience. And remember that it is this 
God who yet declares that He will at last by no means 
clear the guilty. 



We must not confound devotion with piety. The one 
is the means : the other is the result. The one is the 
fire : the other is the food which it cooks. Devotion is 
merely a method by which you attempt to enkindle in 
yourselves spiritual life. It is not piety ; it is the instru- 
ment of it. A man may read his Bible, the Prayer-book, 
and devout treatises, and give much time and attention 
to religious services, and yet be far from piety ; just as a 
man may whirl a millstone and have no grain, no flour. 
And there are many persons that run the mill of piety, 
who grind nothing but bran, who certainly grind very 
little flour for the bread of life. There is a hundred times 
more devotion than piety in the -world. Many men pray 
not so much for the sake of being better, as to furnish a 
substitute for not being better. They are not honest, they 
are not truthful, they are not noble, they are not loving, 
they are not disinterested, they are not ingenuous, and 
they know it, and they pray hoping that their prayers 
will be put against their deficiencies. They are conscious 
of doing wrong, and they have an idea that they can make 
amends for it by praying. They seem to think that if 
they praise God a good deal, and tell Him what they 
think of Him and of His government a good deal, and all 
that, He will accept their devotion as an equivalent for 
right conduct. Not>, the only earthly object of devotion 
11 p 



242 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

is that it may afford means, instrumentalities, fuel, to en* 

enkindle in men a true spiritual lite. The life is some- 
thing separate from the cause that produces it. 



It is no virtue to he patient down hill ; hut to he 
patient up hill is some virtue. In being patient with an 
angel, in being patient with a saint, in being patient with 
a model nature, — in that, there is no credit; bat in being 

patient with a man that is hard, and arrogant, and con- 
temptuous, and that carries himself loftily, so that his 
W'i'Y look and gesture are an insult to you, there is some 
credit. 

Why to tell a nurse that she must be patient with her 
sick ones, and yet excuse her from being patient with 
those that have the dropsy ; with those that have fe\ 
with those that are delirious ; with those that are weak, 
and cannot help themselves, — that would be like giving 
a direction to be patient with people in general, hut 
nobody in particular. But to be patient with mc/i, is to 
be patient with the whole sum of human infirmities, — 
with all weaknesses, with all wants; and with all wicked- 
nesses, as well. 

It is a period of the world when men should take 
courage and be glad. I thank God every morning and 

every night, and ten thousand times a (\:\y. that lie per- 
mitted me to lie horn in .such an age as this. Now a man 
lives a year in a day. Now men are not living in Jan- 
uary, in mid-winter, in a frozen ground where the i 
can suck no juice, where no leaves are playing in the 
wind ! We are living in the month of May, when winter 

is gone, when the Bnows no longer cover deeply the earth, 
and when birds are singing in the air. There are storm*, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 243 

to be sure, but. after every thunder-storm, the leaves play, 
the roots grow, and ten thousand influences are operating 
to bring summer. Let us, then, be patient. Let us be 
hopeful. Let us have faith in God. He is very near to 
us : we know it by the wrath of the Devil ; we know it 
by the way evil men cry out, saying, '* Art thou come to 
torment us before our time ?" we know it because some 
are cast down and are made to wallow, that the Devil 
may be driven out of them. Let him go ; but let them 
arise, clothed, and in their right mind, and be found sit- 
ting at the feet of Jesus. 



Some men think of religion as if it were, on the whole, 
simply a title to heaven. They love the hymn, " When 
I can read my title clear." They understand deeds, and 
titles, and conveyances. Their heavenly title seems to 
them, in the earlier part of their religious experience, to 
be disputed. It is as if the Devil were some sneaking 
man seeking to invalidate their title to their property. 
They go into court, invalidate the claim of their adver- 
sary, and establish their own. That is to say, they are 
awakened, convicted, and converted. And now they say, 
" I have a title to heaven." It is as if a man had a large 
estate which he was carrying on in a certain way, and 
for which there had risen up a claimant, and he went be- 
fore the tribunals, and there contested his right, and got 
a verdict in his favor, and then returned home, and lived 
on the estate as before, without repairing the fences, with- 
out better tilling it, without building new mansions upon 
it, but allowing it to remain the same old thistle-grown 
estate that it was before ; the only change being that his 
title to it is confirmed, so that he can say, " I own it." 
There are a great many men to whom religion seems to 



244 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

be simply the authentication of their title to heaven. 
When they think they have obtained it, they say to them- 
selves, "Now, whatever may befall the world, — while 
they have a heritage, perhaps, of brimstone and lire, — 
I am called, elected, sealed, and adopted. I am going to 
heaven!' 1 But their life remains the .same as before. 
They are no better, no more honorable, no more truthful, 
DO more spiritual, no more devout, no more holy. 



When, after a long, frigid, barren winter, the Bpring 
comes and loves the earth a little while, how wondrous is 
the change that takes place ! When the month of ^lay 
comes and sits upon the North as a bird upon her nest, 
there come forth from under its feathers sound- of new 
life ; the forest echoes with the voices of joyous songsters ; 
the roots start ; the grass grows ; the air smells sweet ; 
all things are full of richness and beauty. Just so it is 
when spring comes to the soul ; when the heart is touch< d 
with the fructifying power of love. How instantly, under 
such circumstances, does there grow up beauty, and fit- 
ness, and satisfaction ! When it i> human heart that 
touches human heart, what a wondrous spring it brings] 
what flowers and promises of fruit ! l>ut ( ), when it is 
the heart of" God that brings spring to our hearts ; when 
it is the heart of God that sets every root, and every hud, 
and every leaf in Ufi a-growing, how wondrous is the 
beauty thai i- evoked! how wondrous is the promise of 
fruit that i- held out! And when we have once loved 
Christ with all oiii- heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, 
and are able to Bay, "To do Thy will is my meal and my 

drink," we have achieved the victory; we have overcome 
all adversaries; we have found the way that is cast up, 

on which the ransomed of the Lord are to return and 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 246 

walk, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. 
When we serve God reluctantly, fitfully, by turns, par- 
tially, we are living a hard life, a starved life, a wretched 
life ; but when we are so brought to Christ that we can 
say, u Thy will be done," we are living an easy, a fed, a 
happy life. The heart that every day can say " Father"; 
that every day can say, " I love Thee " ; that every day 
can say, " Not my will but Thine "; that every day can 
say, t; Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " that, in 
short, can say, " My life is hid with Christ in God," — 
the heart that can say that is able to pronounce the words 
of consummation, the words of victory. There is little 
more in life for him to do except to go on as an exemplar 
and laborer for God, waiting till the Divine call summons 
him to his glorification in heaven. 



Christian brethren, we are advancing nearer and 
nearer, every year, to the consummation of our life-woik. 
"We are coming, every year, nearer and nearer to that 
final disclosure when God shall reveal to us what we are. 
I have sometimes fancied what would be the cause of 
most surprise and joy in the other life. In some hours, 
when higher moral feelings predominate, it seems to me 
that the first thing that will fill the heart of men will be 
the vision of God, — the vision of the Redeemer. In 
other hours, when craving affections are strongest, it 
seems to me that whatever may be the glory of the pres- 
ence of God, the first things the heart will recognize will 
be its lost ones. At other times, when high and heroic 
purposes of life are in the ascendency, it seems to me that 
the sanctified spirits of the noble men that have dwelt upon 
the earth — the great assembly of the just made perfect 
> — will first astonish and rejoice the heart. But I think, 



2iG ROYAL TRUTHS. 

after all. that scarcely less than before God himself, we 
shall stand in utter surprise and wonder before ourselves, 
when what we are is brought out ; when what life has 
made us begins to he disclosed; when, standing in the 
Divine presence, the soul seems, even in that comparison, 
so noble and 80 full of -lory that it is able to say, u I am 
satisfied.'' The glory that is to be ours doth not yet ap- 
pear, but there are glimpses of it 

The life of every Christian on earth has much in it 
that is mysterious ; for it is aiming at an awful grandeur, 
which has never yet been unveiled. God carries in His 
bosom the full ideal. We know it not. We no moaning 

o 

after music. We rudely grope for beauty. We are sick 
men leaning on a staff, and walking slowly for convales- 
cence. We do not know the things toward which we are 
tending ; but God knows them. There are few that 
suppose their moanings or yearnings mean anything, but 
God. The apostle says, " The Spirit helpeth our infirm- 
ities; for we know not what we should pray for as we 
ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us 
with groaningS which cannot be uttered." 

We Bee, then, the meaning of those Strange longings 
and aspirations which so many have. They are the fore- 
workings in us of that which is to appear in the heavenly 
rhey are not a mere vagrant restlessness. They 

are the yearning of the soul for it-elf. They are the 

homesickness of the heart for its future home. They 
are the attempt of the child to Bay u Father." We 
too, the meaning of those glimpses and visions which so 
many have. John Bays, tt It doth not yel appear what 

We shall be." We are the sons of God, we know; but 

what that means, we do not know. 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 247 

How unhappy must be a community bred to tlie in- 
evitable meanness of slavery. Men that have such a 
load to carry may well stagger. Society built upon a 
foundation of injustice cannot bring forth just men. Sla- 
very does not eat the slave half as much as it does the 
master. It is a scorpion-whip, deadly to the hand that 
wields it, as well as to the back that receives its lash. 



A man that makes cloth cannot eat cloth. A man that 
makes porcelain, off which men eat, cannot eat porcelain. 
That which is to hold men's food cannot satisfy their ap- 
petites. It is not your worldly avocations, nor the imme- 
diate results of your worldly avocations, that can satisfy 
you. There is a great mistake made in this regard. Men 
suppose that if they rise early, and sit up late, and give 
themselves to right callings in right ways, they ought to 
be happy. No ! your calling never was meant to be food. 
You must have something better than that to feed upon. 
Suppose a man does rise early, and sit up late, and drive 
a profitable trade, and suppose that to do it he extin- 
guishes taste, takes no pains to contemplate Nature, re- 
fuses to walk where God speaks through His works, cares 
for the family only in a small way of duty, and neglects 
to develop his higher affections, is it to be expected that 
he can be happy ? He means, he says, to succeed in bus- 
iness ; and when he has come to be fifty or sixty years of 
age, and has succeeded in business, he wonders that he 
does not enjoy what he has made. But it is not that 
that can satisfy him. I think that when men are stranded 
on wealth, and left to wander on its desolate shores, where 
nothing can grow, they are among the most pitiable of all 
men in the world, — and not the less so because they 
have made the mistake of supposing that a man's worldly 
avocation will feed his soul. 



24cS ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe 
in it. Grim care. moros< n jbs, anxiety, — all this net of 
life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. It is 
r than emery. Every man ought to rub hin 

with it. A man without mirth is like a wagon without 
spring-, in which one i> caused disagreeably to jolt by 
( very pebble over which it runs. A man with mirth is 
like a chariot with springs, in which one can ride over 
the roughest road, and scarcely feel anything but a pleas- 
ant rocking motion. 



THERE is no isolated thing known to us in creation. 
Everything is a part of something else. Nothing lives 
except by depending on some other thing. The bird eats 
the insect; the insect ate the leaf; the leaf fed upon the 
Bap; the sap came from the ground; the ground drank 
at the cloud's lips; and so you may push all things back, 
and find that one stands on another. In this arrangement 
of creation, we need food for every part of the body. 
Th»- body was not built so that it should stay built, but 
so that it must be rebuilt, in part at least, vvevy single 
day. The bone needs one food, the hair another, the 
nerve another, and the muscle another. And. in anal >gy 
with this, the mind, just as much, demands stimulus and 
occupation that -hall give to it the nourishment and \ i- 
tality which food gives to the body. The child ' 
upon the mother and the father. The parents' B 
wake up the child's, and then feed them. The child's 

thought-, too, are waked up by those of the parent, and 

fed by them. The mind-influence of the parent stimu- 
lates the child'- mind, and gives it fulness an 1 satisfaction. 
The soul will not have Bolitariness. That is hui 

It loves to dwell with tho « tl to it. In the ordi- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 249 

nary and casual relations of life this is true. Men love 
to travel in companies, and to work in companies, simply 
because, ir is said, they are social. But what do you 
mean by that, but this : that there is a yearning thought 
which goes out to the life by which one is built 

And it is to be remarked that the lower down upon 
the scale a nature stands, the less it is developed, the less 
it is civilized, the more it seeks food for the body and 
from matter : while, on the other hand, the higher we 
rise upon the scale, the more our nature is educated, the 
more characteristically we become men, the more we 
reach toward and touch the divine idea in our creation, 
the more do we find that our lite and our life-food are 
in commerce with other natures. Now, all the while, this 
nature is developing, and life is educating it. that it may 
find its true nature in feeding upon God. What we are 
doing every day is tending toward that which we are to 
do when we come to the fulness of our being, and take 
hold of the soul's real end and final supply — God. This 
is the final end of every man. Plants do not express 
themselves as soon as they come up. They grow to what 
they mean, in the vegetable kingdom. So do men. They 
are growing to their final forms. But everything in life 
is in analogy. Everything is tending upon each lower 
to develop the next higher. — upon matter, passion; 
upon this, affection ; upon this, sentiment: and upon this, 
Divine love. 

The Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself to be. and has 
by thrice ten thousand believing ones been found to be, 
the soul's true food. That is. there is not one single 
thing in a man's nature which, if brought into commerce 
with the Lord Jesus Christ, will not find its development 
and satisfaction. There is not one element of a man's 
11* 



2;j0 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

being that cannot be so brought into connection witn 
the Lord Jesue Christ that intellectually he -ball be both 
developed and fed. 

Do you suppose Paganini, who can play <>n one string 

of the violin, could play on one key of an organ, which is 
capable of giving forth but one sound ? Even under the 
hand of Paganini, one string can be made to discourse 
only but poor music lint here are men whose bei 

provided with forty Strings, who have left thirty-nine, 
and go about fiddling on one and wondering why they 
do not succeed in playing high harmonics with orchestral 
lives. They neglect all but one of the many instruments 
the use of all of which is necessary to the attainment of 
happiness, and wonder why they are not happy. 



It is supposed that a man ought to preach what is 
called practical truth. I think so myself. But then 
■ truths are practical just as a whip is which ha- no 
lash, and with which you can touch only a near horse. 
Other truths are practical as is the whip of;; [river 

when driving a team of four or six horses. — a whip with 
a long lash. He has to take a long Stroke behind, and a 
long throw forward, in order to get the crack; but when 
he has got it, it is a good one. Some truths are without 
ladies, and are only good to whip with close by, and oth- 
Ore long-lashed, and have to be carried through long 

circuits before they can be made to produce their legiti- 
mate effects. That is the distinction I make between 
preaching practical ethics and doctrine. 

I believe, therefore, in doctrinal preaching. Doctrinal 

iching thai has no feet, and does not know, when it 
has taken flight, ho.v | > gel down to the ground again; 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 251 

doctrinal preaching that never touches life : all that gas- 
eous stuff called doctrinal preaching, — this 1 heartily 
disbelieve in. But that doctrinal preaching which is like 
the moisture that rises from the ocean, the lakes, the 
rivers, and the damp places, and fills the upper sky, and, 
collecting in clouds, descends in the form of rain, to give 
seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, I most firmly 
believe in. I care not how broad you make the foun- 
dations of it, I care not how voluminous you make the 
principles of it, I care not how exact you make the in- 
tellectual processes of it, so that it is juicy, so that it is 
bud-bearing, so that it yields fruit, so that it aims at this 
thing — the building up of men in human life. 



I hold that a world without a Sabbath would be like 
a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and 
like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day 
of the whole week. Men, however, feel, " Why, I thought 
the Sabbath-day was holy. I was taught that it was 
wicked to laugh or whistle till after sundown. But now 
I perceive that I was wrongly instructed, and that I can 
do what I please without committing any crime." 

You may not break Sunday, but you may do great mis- 
chief. You have no right to take a liberty without think- 
ing that there are children around you, and considering 
what effect your example is going to have on them. You 
are to hold this liberty of the Sabbath-day — if you choose 
to take it — subject to this law of edification. And I, for 
one, cannot conceive how any Christian man can make 
the Sabbath-day a day of secular pleasure, instead of a 
day of religious improvement. 



" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are 



252 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

your ways my ways, Baitb the Lord. For as the heavens 
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than 
your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 

What is tin* teaching here? It is this: that God does 
not sit at the North Pole in cold, iceberg glory, Baying, 
14 Come here, and I will Bave you." He -its in the very 
1) >som of tropical summer, and says to every one that 
want- to repent, "Come toward daylight ; come toward 
growth; conic toward blossoms; come toward fruit, — 
come; for with royal power I will draw you. and with 
royal power I will forgive you. Do not think that I am 
like other potentates: do not think that I am like a v. 
fill king that will lay some severe penalty upon his sub- 
jects, and then, perhaps, at last, accept their submission. 
My thoughts of generosity and of magnanimity are as 
much higher than those of the noblest man, as the heav- 
ens are higher than the earth. Therefore, forsake your 
way only, and return to me, and you shall live." 



"And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judg- 
ment was given unto them; and I saw the ><>u!s of them 

that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and tor the 
word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast) 
neither his image, neither had roe. ived his mark upon 
their foreheads or on their hands, and they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand year.-." 

This is an account of the resurrection of the witness 
I do not know what the commentators make of it, hut T 
prefer to think that the resurrection of the witness 
going on all the time. We are now beholding the resur- 
r< cdon of men that a thousand years ago laid down their 
lives lor principle. Nobody was capable ihen of appreci- 
ating the art or giving it publicity. The Devil had 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 253 

swept his pall over the whole world ; but when these 
men had slept a thousand years they were to have resur- 
rection in this world. Old Cromwell, — why, they trod 
him into the dust, and despised his grave. Even down 
to our day, they would not let a statue of him stand in 
the House of Parliament, — and he has been made more 
memorable by its not being there than he could have 
been by its being there. It would have been a disgrace 
to the memory of this heroic Christian to have placed 
his monument in the midst of those base men who treated 
with contempt his noble example. But he has had a 
resurrection in old England. To-day the spirit of Crom- 
well is felt there. He is judging in that country. It is 
Cromwell, and Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley, and 
Rogers, and Wickliffe, and the other great men of Eng- 
land that died gladly for truth, and justice, and equity, 
and humanity, who are the enthroned sovereigns that sit 
now crowned in that nation. No man shall eject them ; 
no revolution shall throw them out of their sovereignty. 
Who rules in Florence to-day ? Old Savonarola. They 
hung him, and quartered him, and trampled him into the 
dust. But God hid him, and in these latter days God 
has said to him at last, " Come forth, my son, and wit- 
ness ; now thou shalt live and reign a thousand years " ; 
and he is coming forth to live and reign. Old Huss was 
burned in Bohemia. He is not alive yet. He is only 
beginning to shake off the cerements of the grave. But 
he is yet to come forth and witness for the right, and live 
and reign a thousand years. All true men away back to 
the days when Noah built the ark, when patriarchs be- 
lieved in God, when Daniel, rather than sacrifice his con- 
victions, went to the lion's den ; all the old prophets and 
confessors, with Christ at their head ; all the disciples and 



254 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

apostles ; every martyr all the way down to the present 
day that lias been slain for the sake of principle, — these 
are royally to live again. It takes a great while for such 
seed to come up, because when it is up it is not going to 
die. The longer anything is to endure, the longer it is 
in being organized. 



The Christian truly accepts God as a father; not as a 
father in the sense of exterior fatherhood, hut a- a father 
of the soul. And the Christian is united to Him, as a 
child is to a parent, more by affection than by mere ex- 
ternal ties. For my father is not father to me merely 
because he is blood-kindred, but a great deal more be- 
cause he is soul-kindred, to me. And this is the case 
with the fatherhood of God to the Christian. It is not in 
a figurative sense that he accepts God as his Father, but 
in a real, literal spiritual sense. 



0, the insignificance of most of our lives ! Very 
few men are permitted to be poets ; very few men are 
permitted to be wise; very few men are permitted to be 
eloquent; very few men are qualified to be Statesmen. 

A woman that seemed to be endowed with everything 
that was noble, and that was calculated to lit one for ihe 
most eminent service, was called, in God's providence, to 
marry a man that was not her equal. She was placed in 
an obscure position. She was eclipsed in the household. 
She could not walk the saloon. She did not move in the 
midst of a circle of admirers. Her duties were t<> Btay at 
home, to nourish the little sickly child, and to serve her 
stupid husband. While Bhe might have been listening to 
the chime of the spheres, while she might have been 
communing, one would suppose, with the very Eternal, 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 25fl 

she was occupied with rocking the cradle, darning, knit- 
ting, sewing, washing, and cooking. She worked out her 
life in these little insignificant things ; and sometimes, 
perhaps, she thought to herself, '* Woe is me ! To what 
end am I living ? " Her child developed under her 
care, and learned to call her mother ; and when it said, 
" Mother," she thought God spoke, so sweet was its 
voice to her. Now she began to walk up the golden 
path of love. In that child, born of her sufferings, and 
reared by her hand ; in that child, for whom she had 
been a vicarious sufferer and saviour, freely giving her 
inward life, as first she gave her outward life ; in that 
child, summoned to go forth as a messenger of truth, ap- 
pointed to do some great work of love, — in that child, 
she expected more than a thousand times to reap her 
reward for all that she had done and suffered. But her 
hopes in him were blasted. Just as, after having passed 
through the glorious period of boyhood, he was touching 
manhood, in a moment the wave closed over him, and he 
was gone forever ; and the labor of her life was ended, 
and she was stranded on the shores of despair ; and she 
cried out, ,( Why was I born ? and to what end have I 
lived?" 

A hundred had marked her fidelity, and she had been 
schoolmaster to every one of them. A hundred had wit- 
nessed her patience, and all the sermons they had ever 
heard had not preached such a lesson to them as her si- 
lent example. Multitudes that had learned of her, in turn 
became teachers of others. Her influence spread wider 
than she dreamed. It was not until she had gone up to 
the end of life in obscurity, and God had caused the light 
of eternity to shine on her work, that she understood how 
glorious little things might be. 



256 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Maw nnn carry the pr the W :*«1 of God as 

a miser carries bank bills, the fact! of which calls for 
countless treasures, but which he dt>es not carry to the 
hank for presentation. An ignorant man takes a hundred- 
pound-note. He does not know what the stamp mean-. 
bur he has been told that it means that the note is worth 
a hundred pounds sterling. It is worth nothing at all to 
him unless it will draw whit it promises ; and the way for 
him to ascertain whether it i.< worth anything or not, is to 
take it to the paying teller an 1 see if it will draw the 
money. It is time to say that there is no money behind 
it, when, on its being presented, it is rejected. 



I have sometimes had the misfortune to sit in cone 
where person- would chatter and giggle and laugh during 
the performance of the profoundest passages of the sym- 
phonies of the great artists; and I never fail to think, at 
such times, " I ask to know neither you. nor your father 
and mother, nor your name : I know what you are, by 
tlie way you conduct yourself here, — by the want of sym- 
pathy and appreciation which you evince respecting what 
is pass _ tund you." We could hardly help striking a 
man who should stand looking upon Ni ills with- 

out exhibiting emotions of awe and admiration. |i 
were t i see a man walk through galleries of genius, to- 
tally unimpressed by what he saw, we should say to our- 

-. •• Let us be rid of such an unsus eptible crea 
a- tfa 

Now I ask you to pass upon - t 

mont. What do you Bupp € _ Is, that have trem 
and quivered with ecstatic joy in the presence of ( 
think, when they see how indifferent you are to the I)i- 
vine love and goodness in which you are perpetually 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 257 

bathed, and by which you are blessed and sustained every 
moment of your lives ? How can they do otherwise than 
accuse you of monstrous ingratitude and moral insensibil- 
ity which betoken guilt as well as danger ? 



Throughout the Bible it is declared that the things 
that we are permitted to see in this life are but intima- 
tions, glimpses, of what we shall see hereafter. " It doth 
not yet appear what we shall be." There are times when 
it seems as though our circumstances, our nature, all the 
processes of our being, conspired to make us joyful here ; 
yet the apostle says we now see through a glass darkly. 
What, then, must be the vision which we shall behold 
when we go to that abode where we shall see face to face ? 
What a land of glory have you sent your babes into ! 
What a land of delight have you sent your children and 
companions into ! Wliat a land of blessedness are you 
yourselves coming to by and by ! Men talk about dying 
as though it were going toward a desolate place. All 
the past in a man's life is down hill, and toward gloom ; 
and all the future in a man's life is up hill, and toward 
glorious sunrising. There is but one luminous point, and 
that is the home toward which we are tending, above all 
storms, above all sin and peril. Dying is glorious crown- 
ing ; living is yet toiling. If God be yours, all things 
are yours. If Christ, be yours, all heaven is yours. Live 
while you must, but yearn for the day of consummation, 
when the door shall be thrown open, and the bird may fly 
out of his netted cage, and be heard singing in higher 
spheres, and diviner realms. 



God governs in the affairs of men, though we do not 
see Him. God watches the flow of daily life. He stands 

Q 



258 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

in the market; He walks in the street; He beholds the 
ways of business, the paths of temptation, the lanes o r 
pleasure, the .-inks of evil. — in all places where men are 
tasked, and tried, and made temptable, then' stands God 
looking, taking account ; and not only beholding, but en- 
couraging, cheering, and Paying, it' men would but hear 
His voice, "It is always side to be right ; there is always 
reward in virtue ; there is always solid inundation in 
righteousness." Everywhere the voice of God to men 
is, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteous- 
ness," — that is, seek, as the best and highest end of de- 
sire, my kingdom, and my righteousness, — and it shail 
take nothing from, but shall add all things to you. 



True religion carries health and strength into the soul. 
It regulates all things; it subordinates all things to their 
just positions; it withdraws from men no faculty; it ties 
up no power; it extinguishes no instinct; it imprisons no 
part of the mind, — it directs and regulates. Religion is 
only another word for the right use of a man's whole self, 
instead of a wrong use of himself. It puts men into con- 
nection with God; it brings them into harmonious rela- 
tions to their fellow-men ; it gives them direction for the 
achievement of duty ; it opens to them the coming world, 
and inspires them with ardenl desires for it; it makes 

them love whatever is good, and abhor whatever is bad; 
it inspires re\ obedience, and love toward God and 

toward our superiors among men; it inculcates justice, 
mercy, and benevolence toward our fellow-men ; it indues 
us with courage, with patience, with contentment ; it com- 
mands industry, frugality, and hospitality; it enjoins hon- 
esty, truthfulness, uprightness, simplicity, mid integrity 
And that men, in their ignorance and weakn- S, may feel 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 259 

the importance of virtue and of the truest piety, Christ 
reveals the immortality of man's nature, the glory of the 
heavenly state, the sympathy of God with the struggles 
of human life, and, above all, sets before men, in a perfect 
pattern, the example of the life of Christ, who was 
tempted in all points like as we are in this earthly strife, 
and yet without sin, teaching us both by precept and his 
victorious career. 



No man knows half the fulness of his own being until 
inspired to a Christian life. If you will walk with me in 
January over the fertile places in the fields, and through 
the forests, you will see what man is in his natural state. 
The earth is full of roots, not one of which knows how to 
live. The trees are full of buds, every one of which is 
closed and bandaged so that it cannot expand. All 
things are populous, but all things are curdled, congealed, 
restrained. Although, in his natural state, man is full of 
high, godlike powers, yet they are in a condition of bond- 
age, and inactivity ; and the coming of religion to him is 
like the coming of spring to the soil and the forests, when 
all things begin to grow. When a man attains some 
degree of ripeness in his spiritual nature, he may be 
likened to the fields and the forests in midsummer ; and 
when he has passed through life under the stimulating 
influences of religion, he may be likened to plants and 
trees in autumn, when they yield their fruit in exceeding 
abundance, and in a state of perfect ripeness. 



It is not what a man gets, but what a man is, that he 
should think of. He should first think of his character, 
and then of his condition. He that has character need 
have no fears about his condition. Character will draw 
after it condition. Circumstances obey principles. 



260 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

OUB Master said, u Strive to enter in at the strait irate, 
for many will seek to enter in. and .-hall not be able." 
For it was taken for granted that no man could afford to 
he damned. No man can afford to lose immortality in 
heaven. No man can afford to be condemned to >1. 
and swept out from the presence of God with the i tf- 
BCOUring of the earth. 



There are times, I suppose, in which the most zealous 

wonld.it' it were God's will, he glad to die, — to retire 
from the battle of life, — because they think it will make 
no difference whether they live or die. They have such 
a consciousness of imperfection, of inferiority, of until: sfl 
tn themselves, that they feel that it could scarcely he 
worse, and that it might he much better, if they were out 
of the world, and their places were filled by others. 

What is a drop of water of itself? What can he more 
harmless? What is weaker? What is less potent for 
any effect ? It is mist, invisible. It rises through the 
imperceptible paths of the air, and hangs unseen in the 
heavens, till the cold strikes it, and it congeals into 
cloud-, and falls in the form of rain, perhaps on the 
mountain's top, and i< sucked up by tl ly earth. 

Still sinking through the earth, it reaches the line of the 
rocks, from whose Bides it oozes out and trickles down, 
when, finding other drops as weak as itself, they unite 
their forces ; and the sum of the weakness of all these 
drops goes to make the rill ; which flows on, making 
music as it flows, until it meets counter Btreams. Tl 
combined, form the river; the river forms the < 
and the estuary the ocean itself. And now, when God 
has marshalled the sum of the weakness of myriad drops 
together, they lift the mightiest ship as if it were but a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 261 

feather, and play with the winds as if they were mere 
instruments of sport. And yet. that very drop, which a 
man could bear upon the end of his finger, is there, and 
has its part and lot in the might of the whole vast, un- 
bounded sea. 

We in our singleness, in our individuality, in our own 
selves, are weaker than a drop of water, and more un 
stable ; but as gathered together in the great ocean of 
lire, as kept together by the mighty currents which God's 
providences make, we attain, working together with Him, 
under the inspiration of His Spirit, to a might that makes 
life not ignoble, but sublime. It is most worthy of re- 
mark that the things that have called forth the most 
strength and endeavor of life have been things that we 
have most utterly failed in doing; while the things that 
seem to draw about themselves only the endeavors of 
weakness, have been the things that God has established 
most. 



I thixk that if you will look back upon the history 
of scholarship for two thousand years, you will find that 
those things to which the pride of human intellect has 
addressed itself, those things which were expected to be 
monuments of triumphs of thought by the men that put 
them forth, have achieved next to nothing. As it is with 
webs that are destroyed as fast as spun, and that are re- 
spun as fast as destroyed, so it has been with the scholas- 
ticism of two thousand years. If you look at the efforts 
of the most learned statesmen, if you look at the most 
laborious plans and the wisest endeavors of the chief men 
of almost every nation, you will rind that they have toiled 
and labored to build up things that stood only while they 
had their hand upon them, — and hardlv as long as that. 



262 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

Taws have been overthrowD almost before the face of men 
that thought they had done most curious and wonderful 
things in the scale of legislation. Administrations have 
ceased almost hefore the last vote had rung upon them in 
their structure. The things that men have done in their 
own strength have been things that have Bcarcely outlived 
their makers. 



Ideas are cosmopolitan. They have the liberty of the 

world. You have no right to take your swords and cross 
the hounds of other nations to enforce upon them laws or 
institutions which they are unwilling to receive. Hut 
there is no limit to the sphere of a man's ideas. Your 
thoughts and feelings, — the whole world lies open to 
them. Every right-thinking man has a right to Bend 
abroad his thoughts into any latitude, and to give them 
sweep around and around the earth. He lias a light to 
do it, hut of course, like all other rights, it must he regu- 
lated with prudence. It would he difficult for a man to 
propagate his thoughts in some lands ; hut his right to do 
it exists, nevertheless. I have a right to preach Christ 
wherever my heart will. It may he that the crescent] 
th«' scimitar glittering under it, may say to me, u At the 
peril of your life!" hut that does not affect my right I 
have a right hefore idols before Juggernaut, everywhere 
on the whole earth, to preach not only Christ, hut the 
ethics of Christ ; and not only tin 1 ethics of Christ, hut 
tin- civility that is drawn from essential Christianity, and 
thai must flow from it. I have a right to carry all tin; 
ideas developed in consequence of Christianity, in their 

idc-d forms, to the mind of every living human being. 



A Christian accepts, first, the Divine i< lea of his >wn 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 263 

development of character, and labors to produce in him- 
self those things which God seeks. It makes no differ- 
ence that the results are imperfect. The artist that seek* 
to make a portrait, seeks it just as much when by unskill 
he makes no resemblance to the subject, as when by skill 
he makes a perfect representation of the subject. He 
seeks to make the portrait, whether he succeeds or not. 
And a Christian perceives what is the Divine idea in hu- 
man life and character, and aims at it ; and though every 
day he comes short, or overacts, though his results are 
filled with manifold imperfections, and the whole work, to 
him even is a blur, instead of a true picture of the joy 
and righteousness which he meant to paint, nevertheless, 
he has aimed at it. For what we set out to do is not to 
be measured by our success in it. The bankrupt aimed 
at wealth as much as the millionnaire. The man that 
was defeated aimed at victory as much as he that wore 
the laurel. And the Christian, though from weakness 
and temptation he may stumble, if he accepts the Divine 
idea of what human life and character should be, and 
seeks it with all his heart, works together with God. 



There are two kinds of heroes in the world, one of 
which we stand outside of to admire, and the other of 
which we take inside of us. The former are men indif- 
ferent in morals, but of great intellect, great genius, great 
executive force. Peter the Great, Napoleon, and many 
others, were men of such singular power that we cannot 
but admire them. But there have been some men in the 
history of the world whom we not merely admire, but 
whom we desire to take into our souls, and into whose 
care and keeping we desire to yield up our life. Men 
that are willing to stand up for the truth against all 



264 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

comers; men that never equivocate ; men that are always 
full of truth, — those are the men that the soul elect- to 

roes. It is a glorious thing indeed for a 
be able so to carry himself that every one who sees him 
shall Bay, u He is transparent in all that he Bays and 
doe- : his yea is yon. and hi< y." If only such 

arc heroes, we are not in danger of being surfeited. 



Ix those ages of the world when God more apparently 
guided the courses of man personally, pr tie - 
made to individual men. For the most part the men of 
old believed with the simplicity of childhood. It was 
counted to Abraham for righteousness that he beli< 
God against the evidence of Ids own senses. With them 
a promise of God put an end to all controversy and 
doubt. 

In so far as we are concerned, it may be said that 
l's promises respect conduct and character, rather 
than personality. We are to make them personal by 
coming into certain Btates of character, or into certain 
conditions of life. And in this way God's proi 
applicable to the whole human family. 
Thus, the Word of God is filled with ass - of 

No book was rized by the 

of promise. Th few, bat 

I think promii - _ itly outnumber them, as if it \ 
the Divine wish to draw us by hope, rather than drive 
os fear. P - er the whole period of hui 

life. They meet US at our birth ; they clu8l ' OUT 

[hood ; tl 
panies into manhood with us; they divid 
bands and stand at the door of <-yry \ 
rience. You cannot bring - - into a condition 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 265 

for which I cannot find in God's Word some promise. 
Therefore, there are promises of God to the ignorant ; 
to the poor ; to the neglected ; to the burdened ; to the 
oppressed ; to the discouraged ; to the solitary ; to the 
imprisoned ; to the sick ; to the hearl-broken ; to the 
remorseful ; to the weak ; to the strong ; to the timid ; 
to the brave ; to every affection ; to every one of its 
exigencies ; to every sphere of duty ; to all perils ; to 
every temptation that waylays good men in their jour- 
ney. There are promises for joy ; for sorrow ; for vic- 
tory ; for defeat ; for adversity ; for prosperity ; for 
those that run ; for those that walk ; for those who can 
only stand still. Old age has its garlands as full and 
fragrant as youth. The sick, the dying, all men, every- 
where, and always, have their promises of God. 



God's promises are fresh with everlasting youth. The 
stars never wear out ; they are just as good to-day as 
when Abram saw them directing the Oriental people by 
night. The sun is not weary from the number of years : 
there are no wrinkles on its brow. The urns of God are 
replenished by outpouring, and they increase their ful- 
ness by that which they yield. And so God's promises 
are of the nature of laws. The heaven and the earth 
shall pass away, but they shall not change in one jot or 
tittle, nor pass away. 

The music of this world has been for the most part in 
a minor key. This choral globe has groaned and trav- 
ailed in pain until now. God knew the fallen condition 
of the race, and His promises were made explicitly to sin- 
ful men. And when He wrote to you, do you suppose 
He thought you an angel ? He knew well that you were 

12 



266 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

not He knew that the world was full of men tempted 
ami temptable. He knew that men were in a world of 
Bin, themselves sinners And He Bent His Son to you 
because you were in peril, and because unless there was 
Divine rescue there would be universal ruin. And Bhall 
a man say, M I cannot plead th< 

I am sinful?" Therefore plead them, because yon are 
sinful; therefore plead them, because you are wicked; 
therefore trust them, because though you are bad G 

1, and the nature of goodness is to relieve want, even 
though that want he founded on sin. 



Often and often Christ comes walking to the disciples 
on the stormy sea and in the night, and it is necessary 
that there should be some power of faith, some cogent in- 
fluence, that shall make a Christian man willing to follow 
rectitude, duty, honor, truth, no matter where they & 
to lead. And therefore it is that God has put all the 
how.-, all the coruscations of hi- Word around about the 
issues and ends of essential truth, honor, duty, and recti- 
tude, and that He says to US, % * If you would save your 
life, lose it. Do not he afraid." You are often! ' 
brought into trials when it Beems as tl r< rything 

would be wrecked, and the world .-ays, u Prudem 
experience Bays, u Draw hack''; policy -ays, "Change a 
little"; and expediency — noil the noble expediency of 
Divine wisdom, hut the lower and baser expediency of 
human calculation — >mmute, compromise"; hut 

the Word of God Btands Baying, " It' you would save 
yourself, be willing to throw everything away; if you 
would be safe, risk everything, and Btand by that which 
is essentially right and true and noble." The Word of 
God that Btands BUre and Steadfast, and is yea and amen 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 267 

says. " He that will lose his life for a right principle, shall 
save it.'* And in the end. when yon come to count the 
wrecks along the shore, you will find that those men who 
would save their lives by losing their principles are the 
men that have lost their lives ; while those men who 
braved the storm, those men who followed the superior 
light that shone in their hearts, those men who said, 
,% Come what will, there is but one way for me, and that 
is the way that God has marked out," are the men that 
have saved themselves. 



Men know where they are going when they follow a 
principle ; because principles are like rays of light. If 
you trace a ray of light in all its reflections, you will find 
that it runs back to the central sun ; and every great line 
of truth, every great line of 4ieroism, every great line of 
honesty, every great line of honor, runs back toward the 
centre of God. And the man that follows these things 
knows that he is steering right Godward. But the man 
that follows policies, and worldly maxims, does not know 
where he is steering, except that in general he is steering 
toward the Devil. 



u Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his 
spots ? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed 
to evil." 

This is not the language of exact physical science. It 
is said simply to signify how terribly difficult it is to break 
off from a bad habit. Ten thousand witnesses testify, too, 
that there are sins which carry such branches, such roots, 
such amazing vitality, that they fever the whole soul and 
body, where one is subject to them, till it is almost like 
giving up life itself +o be freed from them. 



208 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

The Jew thought that God waa the God of the Jews, 
that tlie Jew had a right to be Baved, and that no other 
man could be Baved without becoming a Jew, or yielding 
obedience to the requirements of the Jewish religion; hut 
the apostles declared that Christ might be preached to 
the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, and that the ben 

of Christ's blood were for the whole world. And Paul 

here noes into this reasoning: u God has a right t<> do as 
lie pleases; He has a right to Bave men thai do not be- 
long to the Jews, nor fullil the demands of their religious 
system ; He has a right to call people unto Himself wher- 
ever and whenever He pleases, for the sake of making 
known His own excellent glory, the beneficence of His 
nature, and the richness of His grace; and who art thou 
that thou shouldst question His wisdom?" That i< to 
say, here is a question of Divine mercy which involves 
the whole schedule of government, and which, therefore, 
you cannot understand. You cannot understand what 
God ought to have done, and what would have been the 
wisest thing, in matters of creation and administration. 
You are obliged, respecting such thing-, to take facts 
as they come to you, and not attempt to L r " behind the 
facts, as though you had greater wisdom than God. 



It is folly for a man to question the Divine wisdom in 
respect to mere matters of administration about which he 

is of necessity most ignorant ; whose elements are beyond 

his reach; whose conditions involve complexities incal- 
culable; and into which enters a principle of time that ifl 

infinite. 'Jim-, for example, suppose a man should say 
to God, "Why did you make the world as you did? 
Why did you make men as they are made ? Why did 
you establish the law of hereditary descent, by which the 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 269 

qualities of the parent go to the children, and through the 
children to many generations? Why was the world 
made so that the abstraction of heat should produce 
ice?" Such questions as these addressed to God -are 
supremely foolish, and the man that addresses them to 
God is a fool. 

But suppose that God has, with infinite pains, in- 
structed us as to what is the difference between self- 
ishness and benevolence, between sympathy and love, 
between indifference and self-seeking and seeking anoth- 
er's welfare, until there is formed in us a clear and 
correct ideal of moral character, then it is not either 
presumptuous or blasphemous to apply to the Divine 
character that very criterion of moral excellence which 
He himself has given to us. The difference, in other 
words, between applying a moral measure that has been 
given to us, and asking questions in respect to adminis- 
trations and governments which are beyond our reach, is 
a world-wide difference. 



God's Word is a great unopened treasure. It seems 
to me like some old baronial estate that has descended to 
a man who lives in a modern house, and thinks it scarcely 
worth while to go and look into the venerable mansion. 
Year after year passes away, and he pays no attention to 
it, sirice he has no suspicion of the valuable treasures it 
contains, till at last some man says to him, " Have you 
been up in the country to look at that estate?" He 
makes up his mind that he will take a look at it. As he 
goes through the porch he is surprised to see the skill 
that has been displayed in its construction, and he says, 
" Indeed, they had some ideas of architecture when this 
house was built." And he is more and more impressed 



27 U ROYAL TRUTHS. 

as he goes through the bulls. He enters a large room, 
and is astonished as he beholds the wealth of pictures 
upon the walls, among which arc; portraits of many of his 
revered ancestors. He stands in amazement before them! 

There is a Titian, there is a Raphael, there i- a Correggio, 
and there i< a Giorgione ! He says, u I never had any 

idea of these before." u Ah !" Bays the steward, "there 
i< many another thing that you know nothing about in 
this castle"; and he takes him from room to room, and 
shows him carved plate and wonderful statues, and the 
man exclaims, " Here I have been for a score of years 
the owner of this estate, and have never before known 
what things were in it ! " 

But no architect ever conceived of such an estate as 
God's Word, and no artist or carver or sculptor ever 
conceived of such pictures and carved dishes and statues 
as adorn its apartments. Its halls and passages cannot 
be surpassed for beauty of architecture, and it contains 
treasures that silver and gold and precious stones are not 
to be mentioned in connection with. 



If there are any that have made up their mind to 
know life, I say to them, Stop! you may pay too dear 
for your knowledge. Men have looked into the crater 

of a volcano to see what was there, and gone down to ex- 
plore, without coming back to report progress. Many and 
many a man has gone to see what was in hell, that did 
see it. Many and many a man has looked to Bee what 
was in the cup, and found a viper coiled up therein. 
Many and many a man has gone into the house of lust, 
and found that the ends thereof were death, — bitter, 
rotten death. Many and many a man has BOUght to 
h-ir;; son) Ithing of the evils of gambling, and learned it 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 271 

to his own ruin. And I say to every man, the more 
you know about these things, the more you ought to be 
ashamed of knowing ; a knowledge of them is not neces- 
sary to education or manhood ; and they ought to be 
avowed, because when a man has once fallen into them, 
the way out is so steep and hard. Many and many a 
man has begun to climb the giddy cliff of reformation ; 
bvt, 0, how few have succeeded in getting over its brow! 
Metbinks I see men sweltering in passions, and swim- 
ming out to the base of the cliff, and attempting to climb 
up. Some are higher than others. One after another 
falls back, or is plucked down by some fiendish hand. 
Some are half way up the cliff, and struggling hard to 
reach the top. Some turn ghastly pale when they look 
down at the abyss below; and they are filled with de- 
spair when they look up at the height above them. And 
where one goes over and is saved, ninety-nine fall back 
and are lost. 



Every praying man and every woman on the globe 
who lives in the intelligent knowledge of Christ, and 
employs the Spirit and truth of Christ intelligently, just 
as much as councils, and synods, and conventions, and 
churches, has the power of the keys. God gives it to 
every one that desires to have the living nature of Christ 
in himr Ah ! do you not suppose there have been thou- 
sands of men who have gone down through life arrogating 
this claim that never opened the door of heaven to one 
single soul? There have been hundreds of popes, I 
suppose, who have opened the door of the future, — but 
it was the door of perdition, — who have not opened the 
door of heaven even for themselves, and much less for 
any that came after them, or went before them. And 



272 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

yet there have been hundreds of poor bedridden Chris- 
tians whose key was bright with perpetual using, and 
who, by faith, and example, and testimony, did bind in- 
iquity in the world, by the golden cords of truth, and did 
set loose, by the same truth, those that were bound, 
giving them power of spiritual insight, giving them eman- 
cipation, and bringing them into the large light and lib- 
erty of the children of God. Emancipators of the soul, 
they were, — humble uncrowned, uncanonical, unordained, 
God-sanctified souls. They knew Christ, and loved Him, 
and poured out His spirit upon men. 

There is a solemn sense in which they that are enlight- 
ened and converted by the truth should hold the keys to 
enlighten all those who are vicious and ignorant beneath 
them. By your superiority you are tempted to make 
yourself the monarch of those beneath you. But God 
ordains you to be the schoolmaster of all who are less 
enlightened than you are. Are you higher than men? 
It is not that you should sit enthroned in their praises, and 
demand their suffrages, and the tribute of their admira- 
tion. The higher you are, the more prompt you should 
be to go down to those that sit in the region and shadow 
of death. Has God given to your soul the knowledge 
of salvation by Jesus Christ ? Arc you linked with 
other brethren that are of the same blessed procession? 
Do you constitute a class? Do you rear your own eliil- 

dr< n in the light and knowledge of these truth-? Where 
are those that arc below you? Where are the vicious? 
Where are the criminals? Where are the unlettered 
and ignorant wanderers in the street ? Where are the 
great mas. that have subsided to the bottom of society ? 

Somebody must be their illuminator. Somebody must 
point their way to the cit aebody must open iH 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 273 

flashing gate? to them. Every one that has the mind 
and will of Christ, and abides in His Spirit, stands in the 
relation to those below him of the holder of the keys. 
Woe be to him that in time of famine has bread and lets 
men starve because he will not part with it ! TToe be to 
him that in time of plague has medicine, and lets men die 
untended ! Double woe be to him that has been enlicdit- 
ened of God, and lets men perish because he will not 
take, by the authority of God, the light that he has re- 
ceived and carry it to them. Are there not within the 
touch of the hem of your garment ; are there not in your 
business places ; are there not in your daily travels ; are 
there not in the thoroughfares of the city, scores and 
hundreds into whose darkened minds never pierced the 
light of God's truth, to whom you never came with a 
lantern? Here you stand unconcerned, — you whose 
soul is luminous, you that by the power of the Holy 
Ghost have been ordained to be a teacher, a leader, and 
a dispenser of spiritual things, — and men are wasting 
and dying in darkness all round about you ! God has 
given you the keys, and He will hold you to a responsi- 
bilitv for the right use of them. 



It has been said with a fatal carelessness, that God 
lives for Himself, — that is, for His own glory. 

I do not deny that all the way through the Scriptures 
this monarchic idea is maintained, which represents God 
as creating and ministering for His own glory, and that 
He may be said in a certain sense to live for His own 
glory ; but He does not create and minister and live for 
such a glory as it has been represented that He does. 
TTe are not to dwell upon one class of texts, and form 
our ideas of God's nature and government from them, 
12* R 



274 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

We are to take all the representations of the Bible in 
respecl to God, and our conception of 1 1 is nature and 
government is to be the resultant of them all. And in 
interpreting even thoe which seem to make G 

gl<>ry the end and aim of His existence, we must beware 
of employing the analogies which come from the i 
Bide of human nature. We are obliged to interpret God 
from ourselves ; and our danger is that we shall interpret 
Him from the baser side of human experience, and not 
from the nobler. If we interpret the Divine government 
from human monarchy, we must take the ideal monarchy, 
and not the real; we must take those conceptions of mon- 
archy which have carried in them the most gladness and 
generosity and royalty for others, ami not those which 
have produced the impression of an iron nature, and a 
sceptre clenched for the sake of oppression and wrong. 
But a man that is a natural-born governor; a man whose 
Belf-esteem and firmness are large, and whose ben< 
lence and social faculties are small, in interpreting mon- 
archy, and applying it to God's government, will think 
and feel that a being that possesses supreme power ha- a 
right to govern as he pleases. But such a view pen 
the analogue from which we form our conception of the 
Divine nature. 



The true glory of God must be interpreted in Christ 
Jcmis ; and when you understand what it i- that G<>d 
makes to be His glory; when you understand that the 
glory of God i- nol 3< lt-laudation, nor enriching His own 
power, nor multiplying Hi- own treasures, but that it is 
supremely to make others happy; when you undersl 
that the glory of God means 1" i' people and not 

Himself, mercy and not Belfishness, the distribution of Ilia 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 275 

county and not the hoarding it up ; when you understand 
that God sits with all the infinite stores of redemptive 
love only to shed them abroad upon men forever and for- 
ever, then you form a different conception of what it is 
for God to reign for His own glory. If love is His glory ; 
if generosity is His glory ; if giving is His glory ; if think- 
ing of the poor is His glory ; if strengthening the weak is 
His glory ; if standing as the defender of the wronged is 
His glory ; if loving and watching over every being that 
He has created forever and forever, is His glory, then, 
blessed be that teaching which represents that God does 
reign for His own glory. That is a glory which is worthy 
of the Divine regality. It will bring out blossoms of joy 
and gladness in heaven and on earth. 



We measure things by the point wherein their supe- 
riority lies. The swine we estimate for fatness; oxen for 
strength and flesh ; dogs for scent and sagacity ; horses 
for speed and endurance. 

Now, man is to be measured by that which makes him 
man, in distinction from everything else ; and that is not 
foot, nor hand nor body, nor appetites, nor passions, nor 
economic or commercial power. These are not the things 
that make him man. It is that which has been stamped 
on him — God's image — that makes him man. That 
part of his nature which introduces the moral element, 
right and wrong ; the spiritual element, invisible reali- 
ties ; and the benevolent element, the very divinity of 
love. Here man must be measured ; for here, and only 
here, he becomes man, among the creatures of the world. 
And our substantial judgment of what we are, what our 
character is, and what we are worth as men, is to be 
formed upon this high moral development, — You are 
worth just how good you are! 



276 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

It is one of the rarest things in the world to find a 
man who, when he looks upon a fellow-man, Bees him as 
God sees him, — as a spiritual being. Men foremost in 
the church, fluent in prayer, and great at exhortation, 

when they go forth, do not see God in man. Such men 
have devotion as a sentiment, as an ecstatic emotion; they 
have temporary Christian feelings ; but they are wanting 
in deep-seated piety. To make moral character the 
standard by which to judge of a man, and to look at him 
in the immortality, is a thing which is not done by one 
out of ten thousand. I think no more revolutionary 
tiling could occur than for an angel to descend from 
heaven, and operate upon the mind of every man, so that 
he would of necessity look on every other man as God 
sees him ; so that whenever yon looked upon your child, 
it would stand to you as the babe Jesus stands to our ad- 
miration, — as a child of God; so that, whenever you 
looked upon your neighbors, you would not see what 
their bodies represent them to be, but as angel eyes see 
them, when their moral nature flame- up invisibly before 
eya< that can see the invisible ! O, if every day, when 
you went to your busine-s, and executed your law of 
selfishness, you saw men just exactly as they are, how 
different would be your feelings on beholding them] If 
when men raise the lash above the head of the helpless, 
or lay the grinding hand upon the weak, they were in- 
stantly, by some mysterious change, made to see that it 
was God's angel they were holding in the dust, how 
would they start back amazed, and say, U I thought it 
was a man, and behold I was wrestling with an angel I " 
If men were to sec their fellow-men as God's angels in 

embryo, and were to judge of them, not by their spheres 

in life, not by their physical n lations, but by their relae 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 277 

cions to the eternal state, and were to feel that every 
inaii was a child of God, and an heir of immortality, 
what a revolution there would be in the structure of 
society ! 

I think that a man struggling against Christianity 
when under conviction, is like a fractious child struggling 
against a dear mother, when she reproves and punishes it 
until, overcome by discipline, it rushes into her arms, 
and kisses her with a paroxysm of tears, and sobs even 
when it sleeps. I have seen men who, under conviction, 
fought terribly against God till Christ was manifested to 
them, when they yielded themselves up to Him, saying, 
" My Lord and my God ! " and with sweet peace fell 
into His arms, and were carried by Him the rest of 
their lives. Is not Christ precious in such hours ? 



Christians are like freight-engines at night. They 
carry a powerful lamp in front, which casts a light far 
ahead, but in no other direction, leaving the everlasting 
snake-train which they drag behind them enveloped in 
darkness. This light corresponds to the Christian's hope, 
which casts its rays heavenward, but leaves the long 
train of bodily appetites and necessities which go with 
him through life unilluminated. Men regard their world- 
ly business and their family duties as distinct from their 
religion. They carry the light of hope on their brow, 
and that is what they call their religion ; whereas, I un- 
derstand religion to be this : the right carriage of body 
and soul, all together. I understand that no man is liv- 
ing a Christian life who is not a Christian in the world f 
in the family, in the church, in his mind, in his soul, in 
the emotions and appetites of his nature, in his hand, in 



278 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

his foot, in his head, — who is not a Christian every- 
where, and in everything in him. To take every faculty 
cr power God has given you and bring it under Divine 
influences, and make it act right, — that is being a 
Christian; an<l all partialisms, by just so much as they 
are partialisms, are, therefore, misunderstandings or mis- 
appropriations of Christian truth. 



Does the Bible tell you the truth about your nature 
and your condition ? Does it tell you how to make 
yourself better ? Is it a book which reveals the grandeur 
of immortality ? Above all, does it lift upon the crude 
imaginations of men in every age, upon the imperfect 
picturings which men have made of the Godhead, the 
clear and sublime light of certainty? Does it collect 
from our higher experiences and our nobler feelings, 
those elements which do truly represent God ; and 
magnifying them, passing upon them the proportions 
of infinity, and lifting them up above all obstruction, 
impurity, and unworthiness, does it hold forth to the 
enraptured sight a God at once in sympathy with human 
nature, yet transcendently greater than it : comprefo 
ble in kind and nature, though, by virtue of infinity, 
utterly unsearchable in degree and magnitude? Does 
it present a God Btanding upon Truth, and upon Justice, 
but blazing upward into Love, which, like an atmosphere, 
tills the infinite round of eternity ; glorious in holim 
fearful in praises; but sublime, above all other thi 
for Love? Is it a book which, evoking from the far 
and impalpable heavens the ideal conception of God, 
causes Him to walk in human form, interpreted thus 
into human conditions; and in the life, the teachings, the 
nnexplainable sufferings, the sublime death, the sepulchre 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 279 

hiding, the resurrection, the ascension, the glorification of 
Jesus Christ, presents a Saviour suited to a man's wants, 
weaknesses, and sins ; — taking hold of us by all that is 
tender and generous, touching whatever in us there is of 
honor, of gratitude, of pity, of love ; — transforming us 
both by the power of our own understandings, lifted up 
upon the mightiest truths, and by the co-operative greater 
power of the Holy Ghost, shed abroad upon the heart ? 
Does it present such a Saviour as every man feels that 
he needs, so soon as his moral life is thoroughly awak- 
ened ; so soon as he begins to measure himself by a law 
higher than any which the world gives ? Is it a book 
from which men without number have drawn motives of 
sublime life ? Is there any other heroism recorded on 
earth so sublime as that which has sprung from faith in 
Christ ? Without a revelation, now and then, rare and 
great souls there have been, capable of endurance, of self- 
denial, and the loftiest heroism. It is the New Testa- 
ment that has taught the poor, the ignorant, the common 
people, to live heroic lives. And since men began to 
believe in it, and to form their lives from its inspiration, 
heroism has become cheap. Yea, it is oftener found in 
the cottage, now, than on the battle-field. And when 
the last great day shall reveal the unknown things of 
time, the heroes of the cradle- side ; the heroes of the 
sick-chamber ; the heroes of poverty ; the heroes of the 
dungeon ; the heroes of labor ; the despised heroes, that 
grow, thick as grass, in the low places of the earth, and, 
like the grass, are trodden down, often, under the hoofs 
of men ; these — that great army of the last that are 
destined to be first, this illustrious host that shall flame 
upward from the bottom to the very top and summit of 
glory — shall tell of the divinity of the New Testament 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 

what it does, declare what it is. Its power ipon men 
isuree the power of God in it. That which can bring 
men to God must itself have come from God. 



It is Christ that I would make personal to you. He 
is not a Being that dwells in the inner recesses of the 
eternal world, inaccessible, incomprehensible. He is not 
the stern king, unbending, upon a throne of justice, lifted 
up above the reach of Bigba and sinful wants. He is not 
as one fortified behind the bulwarks of law, so that one 
must cannonade, and breach the walls with prayers, and 
then rush in to take Him captive. Men never find 
Christ, but are always found of Him. He goes forth to 
seek and to save the lost. It is not the outreaching of 
our thought, it is not the attraction of our heart, it is not 
the strong drawing of our sympathy and yearning, that 
brings Him to us. It is the abounding love of His 1 
that draws us up toward Him. His love precedes ours. 
; * We love Him because He first loved us." We kindle 
our hearts at His. As the sun is up before the sluggard, 
so the twilight and dawn of Hi3 love is upon the hills 
when we wake; and when we sleep, even, His thoi;_ 
burn above us as the stars burn through the night ! 

It is this willing, winning, pleading Christ, who wi< 
all the grandeur of justice and all the authority of uni- 
versal empire with such rare and a . that 
in all the earth there is none like unto Him, that I Bet 
e you as your personal friend ! He knows each of 
you better than your mother knew you! He has called 
you by name! In your ho "mil- 
iar to your most cherished friend as you are to the 
thought of Christ ! Not BO indelibly is your nam- 
Corded in your father'- memory, or in the bapti-mal regf 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 281 

ister of the sanctuary, or in the family Bible, where the 
tabular leaf for births holds your infant name, as upon 
the ever-remembering heart of the Lord Jesus Christ ! 



Be not discouraged because you are sinful. It is the 
very office of Christ's love to heal your sin. Not, then, 
when you have overcome them yourself, is He prepared 
to receive you ; it is His delight to give you help while 
wrestling with your sins. He is your pilot to lead you 
out of trouble. Xo pilot would he be that only then 
would take my ship when I had gone through the nar- 
rows, and could see the city, and was quite free of all dan- 
ger. Who would need a physician if he might not come 
to his bedside until after he was healed? What use of a 
schoolmaster if one may not go to school till his educa- 
tion be complete ? What hope of salvation if God would 
give us no help till the whole work of subduing the nat- 
ural heart were completed? And our Saviour is one 
who begins and completes in us the work of grace. He 
is the author of our faith, and the finisher of it. It is His 
power that works in us to will and to do of His good 
pleasure. He comes to you when you are dead, and by 
His touch brings you to life. When you are weak, He 
inspires you with strength. When you are tempted, He 
opens the door of escape. When you are vanquished. He 
appears to lift you up .and binds your wounds. Yea, 
bending under all our burdens, and loaded down with our 
own sins, behold that Christ of whom it is said, " He was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; 
and by his stripes we have healing," 



Watch unto prayer ! Many have supposed that it 



282 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

was impossible for a man to be in tbis state of watchful. 
nes8, and yet be a buoyant, fringing Christian. Just as 

tin > 1 1 _r 1 1 a man could not whistle while acting as a senti- 
nel ! Just as though he could not think of home, of his 
lady-love, and of a thousand things beside, while faith- 
full}' watching at his post. 



A max is said in the Bible to be more precious than 
the gold of Ophir ; and of a woman it is -aid. - Her price 
is far above rabies." These were common comparu 
There is something in the glow of precious stones that 
peculiarly fits them to serve for such spiritual ligmvs. 
There is about them a subtle light — a brilliancy — that 
burns without fire ; that consumes nothing, and requires 
no supply ; that forever shines without oil ; that is ever 
living, unwasting, unchanged by any of the natural ele- 
ments. A diamond that glows in the sunlight flashes 
yet more beautifully in the night. No mould can get 
root upon it; no rust can tarnish it; no decay can waste 
it. The jewels that were buried two thousand years 
if now dug up from royal and priestly tombs, would come 
forth as fail* and fresh as they were when the proud 
wearer first carried them in his diadem. Such si 
seemed to the ancients, and are, lit emblems by which to 
represent spiritual qualities, and the beauty and imperish- 
ableness of Christian virtue. And a company of h<»ly 
men. resting upon tin; Lord Jesus Christ, may well he 
compared to a palace built upon broad foundation-, and 
sparkling to the very Summit with living stones, which 
throw back to the Bun a differing flash through every hour 

of his rise or fall through the long day. 



[t is one thing to be a believer in God's government; 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 283 

it is another thing to hold company with God, — to be- 
hold Him, to love Him, and to commune with Him, to 
twine your life about Him. 

Sometimes a child is removed from its mother's care, 
and put out to nurse to a foster-mother. Through all its 
earlier years it is, as it were, the child of this new-found 
mother. For some reasons the parents may not choose, 
for a time, to own their child. They may secretly go 
where it is, and look upon it as it sleeps. It shall hear 
about them, and shall know that all its wants are supplied 
by them. It may even yearn for mother and father, and 
w T onder what those words must mean at last. And yet 
the child never sees its parents. But, by and by, they 
send for their child, and it is brought home. Now, little 
by little, it grows acquainted w r ith them. It rides with 
them; it eats with them; it talks with them; it loves 
them ; it begins to live with them. And is there no dif- 
ference between depending on parents whom you do not 
know, and a conscious communion w T ith them when you 
are united to them ? Is there no difference between the 
relation of a child to its parents when it is a foster-child, 
kept aloof, supported by the parents through others, and 
its relation to them afterwards, when it is brought home, 
embraced, embosomed, and made hourly conscious of their 
presence and personal love ? Now, there is such a thing 
as our being put out to nurse in this world. There is, 
also, such a thing as our being brought home to God, as 
our Father ; and in the light of this illustration it is easy 
to perceive that there is a world-wide difference between 
a conscious dependence upon God and a conscious com* 
wunion w T ith Him. 



You may ask, " What will become of those men who 



28-1 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

are so good, but whom you do not class among Chris- 
tians?" I do not know. Thank God, 1 am not God! 
Every man hears the drum-beat of the eternal world. 
Every man must stand for himself, and every man most 

answer for himself there. It is enough for me to bring 
myself and my own charge to God, without stopping to 
answer questions which belong to the future. One tiling 
I know, and that is, that there i- no other name but the 
name of Christ given under heaven, that we know any- 
thing about, whereby we can be saved. One thing I 
know, and that is, that lie who trusts in the Lord Jesus 
Christ shall never be moved. One thing I know, that 
there is a power in Christ to translate a man above his 
sins, and almost above temptations, in this world. I be- 
lieve there is a power in Christ to disfranchise a man, and 
take away from him the livery of hell; and to enfran- 
chise a man, and give him the livery of heaven. I be- 
lieve there is a power in the faith of Christ Jesus to 
transform a man from evil to good, and from good to 
saintship, and bring him to the haven, to the home above. 
If there is any other way for a man to be saved e.\c< pt 
through this faith, I do not know what it is. Bui one 
thing I know, and that is, that the joy which I derive 
from faith in Christ is ten thousand time- greater than 
any of the other joys which greet my heart in this world. 
I know no other light; I will steer for that. I feel no 
other influence; I will be drawn by that. I have no 
other faith ; I will trust in that. For he who lives and 
dies believing in Christ, shall not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life. 



HlGHEB than morality, higher than philanthropy, 
higher than worship, come- the love of God. That is 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 285 

the chiefest thing When we have that, we reach the 
very thing for which the New Testament scheme was 
administered. Love ! it is that which brings forth out 
of obscurity the hidden God which we seek. Send forth 
all the powers of the soul to search for God, and there 
is not one of them which, making inquisition according to 
its own nature, can find Him out and reveal Him, except 
this divine spirit of love ! Put wings of imagination upon 
Conscience, and let it fly forth. Say to it, " Go, and find 
thy God ! " Flying through night and through day ; 
above and beneath ; among clouds and thunder ; through 
darkness and through light; it would return at length, 
wing-tired, only to say, "I have found marks of God, in 
law, in pain, and penalty ; T have seen the traces of 
thunder, and the path of lightning, and the foundations 
of eternal power ; but nowhere have I found the full 
God." 

Give the wings of faith to Rea.son, and send it, in turn, 
forth from east to west, around the earth, and through 
the heavens, to see if by searching it can find out God ; 
and it shall say, " I have seen the curious work of His 
hand, and have marked the treasures that He hath heaped 
up. The whole earth is full of His glory, and the heav- 
ens are unsearchable by us. TVhat God hath done I 
have felt, but God himself is hidden from my sight." 

Let Fear, equipped with faith, pursue the same errand. 
It would not even know which way to fly, and, turning 
downward, groping or flying directly amidst infernal 
things, it would rehearse a catalogue of terrors, of gloomy 
fears, or brooding superstitions ; but the bright sun-clad 
God it could not see. 

Let Eeverence go forth. But what there is in Rever- 
ence can never interpret what there is in God. This 



286 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

feeling can touch the divine orb h it in a single point. 
And the Heavens would Bay to B iverence, " Such an 
one as you Beek is nut in me"; and Hull would Bay, 
'•lit- is not in me M ; and Earth and Time would repeat, 
k> He is not in us ! " 

It is only Love that can find out God without seareh- 
ing. Upon it- eye- God dawns. Wherever it looks, 
and whatever it sees, — that i- God; for God is love. 
Love is that regent quality which was meant to reveal 
the Divine to us. It carries its own light, and. by its 
own secret nature, is drawn instantly toward God, and 
its the knowledge of Him back upon us. 



I know that my Redeemer liveth. I have stood near 
the grave, and then I knew that my Redeemer lived, and 
that because He lived I should. I have gazed through 
that most powerful glass of all, through which God re- 
veals the invisible, — the fresh-opened graves of my 
children! — and there, in the tumults and revolutions of 
grief, I knew that my Redeemer lived, and that lie was 
with me to comfort me. I have seen trial- and troubles 
of various kinds in my life; and I bear witness that there 
was never a time when I needed help that lb- was no 
my side to help me. And I have no sort of doubt that 
Christ will stand by me to the end. and conduct me 
through the gate of death to eternal life. And no man 
shall move me from my faith in Him I 



TELL me that it is an impossible tiling for a man to 
love the Lord Jesus Christ, who is invisible! You 
might as well, if I were now to £0 forth beneath the 
glorious Bun, and it- v:\y< were to tall down through the 
air upon me and about me on every side, tell me there 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 287 

was no sun ! Councils of owls and bats may come to me, 
under the name of philosophers, and say, " Do you not 
think that all these which you are talking about — rays 
of the sun, flowers, singing-birds, curling smoke, and the 
like — are a delusion ? We have lived almost as long as 
you have, and we have consulted the oldest owls and 
bats, and we do not believe in them." Let owls and bats 
take their experience from dens and caves, but let men 
take their knowledge from the open heavens. I know, 
— whatever men may say, in the low places and the high 
places of life, — I know that there is such a thing as lov- 
ing Jesus Christ as a friend, as a brother ; and that there 
is no other love that is so sweet, so deep, so lasting, so 
wondrous, as that which the soul can bear toward Him. 



Would you think that man fit for a hero who should 
occupy the leisure of peace in telling what hard commis- 
sions he had during the last campaign, how tired he was 
on the march, and how painful it was to wear his armor? 
Would you think that man fit for a hero who should thus 
rehearse all the petty annoyances that he experienced in 
-the camp and on the battle-field ? What idea would you 
have of a general or a soldier who should be more 
thoughtful of such contemptible personalities than of 
those things that pertain to the interests of the cause in 
which he is engaged ? You that are called from dark- 
ness to light, and made to know the eternal obligation 
of your own souls ; you into whose hands are put jewels 
more precious and glowing than stars in the heavens; 
you who are made God's instruments for redeeming men, 
you ought to be ashamed to talk about your cares and 
responsibilities, as if they were onerous things. The 
permission for laboring for God's cause is undeserved, 



288 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and granted by His free grace, and yet you are moaning 
and repining about your Bufferings ! Either die, or else 
work and hold your peace about your Bufferings ! 



I have seen the vision of Christ a thousand times as I 

wanted to see Him. I have seen the vision of Christ 
bend over me with tenderness. I have seen the vision 

of Christ instruct me with divine wisdom and radiant 
knowledge. I have seen the vision of Christ standing 
up as the advocate of the poor, and the defender of the 
wronged. I have seen the vision of Christ clothed with 
clouds ; and I have seen those clouds changed to gor- 
geous colors of glory. I have seen ten thou-and visions 
pictured of Christ Jesus; but I have never yet seen Him t 
There is a day coming when I shall see Him as He is ; 
not as I feign Him to be ; not as my heart paints Him ; 
not as my wants interpret Him ; but as He is! In that 
illustrious day I shall have no fear. Chief among tea 
thousand. He shall then be precious to me, and forever 
and forever my heart's treasure and my soul's delight. 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus, — come quickly ! 



Had you a mother that was a woman of God ? and 
w.-i^ faithful? Do you scarcely dare to look back and 
think of the instructions which, upon her knee, y.»u re- 
ceived ? I have hope for you; not because you are 
good, — you are ba-e and most unworthy; but, O, the 
power of a mother with God, — it is great I And I 
b lieve that for the children that are c ted in the 

lap and bosom of maternal love, there is hope until 
they pa— away, and the whole scene closes. The whole 
world may Beem to thwart her counsels, rising up against 
them ; but I think there is a golden thread, which a 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 289 

mother's love spins, that will not be broken. Tossed 
about like a gossamer, it may be tangled, and apparently 
broken and gone ; but by and by, when storms come, 
and the sea roars, and the heavens are black, something 
is seen beginning to hold the drifting human heart. And 
then it shall appear that, stronger than hempen cable or 
iron chain, a mother's teachings and love hold fast the 
imperilled heart, and it rides out the swelling gale, and is 
found, even if crippled and damaged, yet safe anchored 
at length on a tranquil sea. Great is the promise and 
great the hope. 

There are some persons who seem so constituted that 
their religious feelings almost never flow so readily as 
when they act for other people. They are persons of 
great constitutional benevolence. They make benevo- 
lence their conscience. When they go forth into life, 
benevolence is their guiding principle. Such persons 
oftentimes say, " I never can have deep religious feelings 
by ordinary means ; but when such a man was in trouble, 
and told me of the wants of his family, — his wife and 
children, — and I took my hat and went home with him, 
and mingled my tears with theirs, it did seem as if I was 
not a handbreadth from heaven. I never had such a 
sense of the goodness of God as I had then." Probably 
you were never so near like God as you were then. No 
wonder you felt near Him. You are not far from Him 
when you get so near Him as to give your time and en- 
ergies for the good of His needy creatures. 



Did you ever, in a summer's day, when you had drawn 
from the bottom of the well the cooling draught to slake 
your thirst, stand and dream, and gaze at a drop, orbed 
13 g 



200 ROYAL TRUTHS 

and hanging from the bucket's edge, reflecting the light 
of the sun ? What the rounded form and size of that 
drop is in comparison with the whole earth itself, that 
the round earth itself is in comparison with God'fl maj- 
esty of being or degree of magnitude! And that such 
an One, living in such a wise, — bo far above the earth, 
so far above its inhabitants, bo far above the noblest ppirit 
that stands in the unlost purity of heaven, — that such an. 
One should deal with I lis erring creature with a gentle- 
ness and patience, such as characterizes the administra- 
tion of God toward man, is sublime and wonderful! 



The Bible says that God is past finding out. But it 
does not mean that His physical power is past finding 
out. It is His disposition, His moral nature, that are 
beyond research and measurement. The unsearchable- 
ness of the love of God in Christ Jesus ; the greatness, 
the grandeur, and the glory of the Heart that, hating in- 
iquity with an intense hatred, can love the doer of it, and 
that, abhorring sin with an infinite abhorrence, can give 
itself to save the sinner, — these are the things that are 
past finding out. The marvel of meekness, and sweet- 
ness, and love in the arch-Thunderer of eternity, — this 
it is that is past finding out ! 



These are a great many persons who think, ; ' I must 
take care of my religion." They have got something that 
they call religion, which they conceive needs to be 
guarded. Just as if I should say, " I must take care of 
my health," and should yet neglect my body, so that my 
nerves were out of order, and my heart was out of right 
heat, thinking that I had something distinct from the 

body, which was health; whereas health mean- a body 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 291 

acting right in every one of its parts ! And religion is to 
the soul what health is to the body, — it is the right or- 
dering of all the faculties. Many persons think it is con- 
fined to certain faculties, which must be set buzzing at 
particular times. They treat it very much as a boy 
would a caged bird. They keep their religion at home 
all the week, and on Sunday they go and slip it into the 
cage, and let it sing ; but its voice is hushed the moment 
they take it out. They say that you must not act out- 
side of the church in a way that is inconsistent with your 
religion, or violate it, but that you are not to mind right 
living. Their religion is a certain spiritual partialism. 
They skin off and set aside a part of their nature, and 
regard that as the element of religion. How many times 
do men carry this thing to such an excess, that it becomes 
a glaring absurdity before the world ! 

There is this damnable heresy, that religion is a tech- 
nical element, which you can separate from a man's throb- 
bing life ! Why, whatever you do at twelve at night, or 
at twelve in the daytime ; whatever you do at six in the 
morning, or at six in the evening ; whatever you do on 
the Sabbath, or on any week-day ; whatever you do in the 
ship, or in the blacksmith's shop ; whatever you do in 
the house, or in the street ; whatever you do in the sanc- 
tuary, or at the concert ; whatever you do at any time, or 
in any place, you are to do to the glory of God. By as 
much as you come short of doing this, by so much is your 
religion deficient. 



Closet meditations and devotions which used to char- 
acterize piety, are far less common than they were. In 
old times, when men were persecuted for their religion, 
they had nothing to do but to read the Bible, and pray, 



202 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and be burned, and what not. And in our own day, in 
our childhood, the Bible was the principal part of the 
library that we cared to read. Since that time there bad 
been created an enormous literature ; and no man is too 
poor to have it in his house. It carries with it great 
blessings. To be enfranchised from ignorance is, of it- 
self, no small blessing. But with all the collateral bless- 
ings of this literature upon the world, there are some 
side dangers to be guarded against. The mind may be 
diluted. Men are covered over with papers, novels, and 
books, as fences are covered with vines and weeds. The 
time consumed is not the chief evil; but the perversion 
of taste, the destruction of a hearty relish for the sober 
certainties and solemnities of God's Word. We have 
fallen off immensely on the side of religious culture, — 
earnest, prolonged, habitual, domestic, religious culture, 
conducted by the reading of God's Word and by prayer 
and its family influences. And this tendency is still fur- 
ther augmented by the increase of religious books, of 
tracts, of biographies and histories, of commentaries, 
which tend to envelop and hide the Word of God from 
our minds. In other words, these things which arc called 
"helps" have been increased to such a degree, and have 
come to occupy so much of our attention, that when we 
have read our helps, we have no time left to read the 
thing to be helped ; and the Bible is covered down and 
lost under its k * helps." Far be it from ine to say that 
We are worse off with all the books in our libraries than 
we would be without them ; but while we are to have the 
benefit, of these, we are to mark the tendency to which 
I allude. 



O, HOW many different ways there are by which God 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 293 

comes mto the soul ! The great God, so prolific of 
thought, so endless in diversity of function, has a million 
ways by which to express Himself. He, in His power, 
works on the soul not through one thing alone, — net 
alone through steeple, nor meeting-house, nor lecture- 
room, nor closet, though often and much through these ; 
but through all things, — through the heavenly bodies, 
and animals, and insects, and worms, and clouds, and 
mountains, and oceans, and rivers, and the productions 
of the earth ; and not by these only, but by everything 
that affects man's comfort and happiness in this Lfe, — by 
store and anvil, and plane and saw, and hospital and poor- 
house, and music and forms of beauty, and sweet feelings 
and trials, and sufferings and victories over temptation, 
and light and darkness, and joy and 'sorrow, and ten thou- 
sand unnamable subtle influences that touch the human 
soul ; by all these God reveals His greatness and good- 
ness to us, that He may win us to Himself, and make U3 
heirs of immortality ; and, blessed be His name, not to us 
alone, but to every one, everywhere ! 



There is a strange law of vicarious suffering wrought 
into the very structure of human life. The child does not 
come singing like a cherub from the hand of God. The 
mother cries, and the child cries, and men say, "A man 
is born." It is suffering that gives life, and then it is 
suffering that is worn as a robe for life. For every one 
that has been ministered unto ; for every one that has 
been educated ; for every one that has been advanced by 
development through the stages of animalism up to the 
social element and the moral sentiments, — for every such 
one there have been some to suffer. Our thrift and ad- 
vancement in moral things are the result of the sufferings 



294 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

of others. To Bay that we are morally developed is sv- 
nonymous with saving that we have reaped what -oine 
one has Buffered for us. There is do friend that does not 
surfer fur friend. It may almost be Baid that we measure 
friendship, not by excess of joy, but by joyfulness of Buf- 
fering one for another. There is no good accomplished 
that is not accomplished through the medium of some- 
body's Buffering. No great thought was ever born that 
was not born through suffering. No great principle' was 
ever wrought out except by toil and trouble and suffering. 
No great truth was ever applied to the cause of morals 
in this world that was not accompanied by suffering pro- 
portionate to the good that it effected. God measures 
the magnitude of blessings by the sufferings that men are 
willing to bear for the sake of attaining them. 

When in the peace and serene joy of the tranquil 
household children sit round about the encircled table, 
how little do they know that all their delight and all 
their sweet peace has been purchased by midnight vigils, 
by maternal tears, by parental strivings with God ! We 
that buy our joy and peace by trouble sow seeds. Tears 
are God's seeds. They come up joys. It might almost 
be said that groans are the key-notes of joy on earth. 
Weakness is the beginning of strength ; humility, of 
exaltation ; shame, of glory ; toil, of ea- 

Men seem to set themselves against the monstrous in- 
justice, as they call it, of Christ'- bearing the sins of the 
world. They seem to revolt at the idea of the just Buf- 
fering for the unjust. They seem to think that this i- a 
thing that cannot be cither illustrated or proved by the 
mora) Bentimenl of men. But I declare that then' is in 
Bocial lite an illustration of the principle of vicarious 
rvjlfering. As Christ Buffered for the world, so one man 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 295 

suffers for another man. A.nd in our joy we reap the 
fruit of what others suffer. The example of Christ is 
but a symbol and magnificent type of that which we in 
our several spheres find out in the details of life. 



Where, in all the round of human experience, worthy 
men suffer, not from an accident, not under penalty, but 
for the sake of emancipating themselves or others from 
an evil ; where they suffer for the sake of advancing a 
truth or establishing a nobler principle in their own life 
or in the lives of others, every tear, every watching, 
every weariness, every groan, every sorrow, every exclu- 
sion, every self-denial, every pain, is known, is registered, 
and will ever be remembered and honored. Our suffer- 
ings seem barren here, but when we see them blossom in 
heaven we shall not know them. Here they are like 
sharp thorns ; there they will be like flowers waving 
in the garden. AVe see the seed-form, the sprout-form, 
of our troubles, we see our troubles without comeliness 
or beauty ; but when God shall have developed their 
full growth and symmetry in heaven, how different they 
will seem to us ! 



A great many persons deny themselves with the 
most superfluous self-denial. They seek for things of 
which they can deny themselves. But you need not do 
that. Let your opportunities for self-denial come to you ; 
but when they do come, do not flinch. God will send 
vou occasions enough for denvins: vourself. There is 
wood enough in every man's forest to build all the cares 
he will need to carry. You need not withhold yourself 
from any proper joy ; but when for the sake of honesty, 
or benevolence, or love, or purity, or truth, it its needed 



29ri ROiAL TRUTHS. 

that you should Buffer, step boldly forward, even /f to do 
so is to go into fire. The form of Christ will be by your 
side, and the smell of the fire shall not be on your g:fc- 
ments. 



One would suppose that there had never been a printed 
Bible in some men's houses. Some men do not appeal 

to have any conception of the sufferings of their Lord 
and Master. There are parents that seem to think that 
their life 13 well worn out and worthily bestowed, if they 
spend it in accumulating a fortune. And for what ? To 
save their children from the toil that they have endured. 
But what made the parents ? What made your arm 
stalwart, and your head clear and discriminating? What 
was it that made your life patient and enduring? What 
was it that made you a force among men, accomplishing 
and achieving? What was it but that very necessity 
from which you wish to hide your children? Ah! your 
trouble was your armor, as well as your arms, and yet 
you would send your children down into the battle of life 
naked, with nothing to cover them ! There are a great 
many whose thought, by day and by night, is, k * How 
shall we put our children in a position of honor and i ase 
and comfort?" The wish of Christian parents, often- 
times, is, not that their children shall be less than virtu- 
ous, but that, being virtuous and pious, they .-hall be 
where no hard-hips shall he able to come to them. ( ), 

if the cherished ones of their bosom could be placed be- 
yond contention and hidden from strife ; if they COU d be 
lifted above the necessity of going forth to toil and con- 
flict, the great desire of their life would be realized! 

What God-blighted children Buch children must be! 
What a baptism of desire is thai which you put on yom 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 297 

children, — you that wish to shield them from trials and 
cares ! You are like the mother of the sons of Zebedee, 
who went to the Saviour, and said, " Grant that these my 
two sons may sit. the one on thy right hand, and the other 
on the left in thy kingdom." Not understanding that 
solemn response, " Are ye able to drink of the cup that I 
shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I 
am baptized with ? " you want honor and distinction for 
your children, but you do not want that they should be 
exposed to that strife out of which these things must 
inevitably come. 



There are a great many persons who think themselves 
equipped to do good, but who can find no proper place 
wherein to exercise the eminent gifts which it has pleased 
the bounty of Providence to confer upon them. They 
are so elegant, so refined, that it is a pity that they should 
go among the vulgar ! They are so large in their expe- 
rience and reading, that it is a pity that they should go 
into societies where people have circumscribed ideas ! 
They have such gentility on their side, that it is a pity 
that they should go inio a place where folks are not gen 
teel ! And so these martyrs, these reformers, these 
would-be ministers of God's TVord to this lost world, are 
unable to find a place suitable for them to labor in ! 

Have you never seen, at sunset, a hen walking around 
a tree irresolute as to the bough which she would take, 
stooping for one. and then quitting that and stooj ing for 
another, and then quitting that and stooping for another ? 
Just like such a hen are some ministers that I have seen 
running about for a settlement, stooping for one, and then, 
thinking that it was not quite good enough, quitting it 
and stooping for another, thus frittering away their time 
13* 



1208 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and energies to no purpose. Lei Buch men turn away 
at once from the camp of God, and go to the camp of the 
world. There they belong. They are not ministers of 
God whose prime thought is as to how they shall serve 
God without incommoding themselves, and how they shall 
redeem men without Buffering in anywise for them. 



When men have befriended us, Buffered for us, perilled 
themselves for us, the whole of every noble feeling with- 
in us rises up and pours out like a flood from the temple 
of the soul, and we go to them with beneficences and 
benefactions. So it is with men, — men that yet are 
selfish, that are proud, that are circumscribed in all 
good. 

What, then, must be the nature of the same feeling 
when it issues out of the heart of the infinite God, and 
manifests itself in the immensity of His generosity, and 
the glory of His magnanimity ? 

How wonderful is it, in the first place, that God should 
be pleased to accept as suffering for Him, the things 
which we suffer in the warfare of our dispositions in life ! 
How wonderful is that grace that watches the whole 
earth, that sees all the innumerable Bufferings of men, 
however hidden, obscure, or out-of-the-way they may be, 
and marks every tear and every heart-throb, and with 
wonderful magnanimity says, '-These Bufferings are for 
me!" How wonderful is that grace by which God iden- 
tifies Himself with the poor, with striving and struggling 
6inful men who are seeking emancipation, taking as ben- 
efaction? offered to Himself all things that we do or risk 
for ourselves or for our fellow-men ! And what, think 

you, will be the wonder of God's heart when He poun 
forth from it tides of gratitude? 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 29ft 

When God wished to express His thoughts of taste. He 
filled the heaven, the earth, and the sea with beauties 
varied and innumerable. When God wished to speak 
His ideas of skill. He covered the globe with wonderful 
and exquisite structures of animals and birds and insects. 
When God wished to display His wisdom. He created the 
universe, in all its various parts, and with its multitudi- 
nous relations. And if God writes such a handwriting as 
that, if such are the ways in which He is wont to express 
Himself in this world, what will be the sweep of His soul 
when with honor and glory He remunerates those who 
have suffered for Him ? 



I ax ashamed when I think how we find dissatisfaction 
where we should find satisfaction : how we extract bitter- 
ness where we should find sweetness ; how we create 
stench where we should find perfume ; how we strive 
to make ourselves unhappy in the very relations where 
God meant that we should be blissful. I am ashamed to 
think how we find argument for sullenness. for complaint, 
and even for charge against God. who has rounded out 
the world in mercy, fed us wirh His bounty, and clothed 
us personally in kindness. When I think how God has 
borne in upon our spiritual life the promises of help, and 
fulfilled those promises from day to day. from week to 
week, from month to month, and from year to year, and 
how we have met the acts of His goodness toward us with 
selfishness, and pride, and complaints. I am ashamed of 
myself and of my kind. God has not deserved such treat- 
ment at our hands. 



Yor never know, till you try to reach them, how ac- 
cessible men are ; and if, with an earnest desire to pro- 



300 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

mote their eternal welfare, you seek to bring tlem to a 
knowledge of the truth, you shall find that outside ot 
churches, and outside of ordinary influences, by the I 
tery of providence, as well as by the mystery of grace, 
God is working in the hearts of men, and preparing them 
to be gathered by us into His bid. 

It is said that at the battle of Solferino, what with the 
fear of being crushed, what with the mortal fear of the 
barbarity of the French soldiers, of which they had b< 
hundreds of wounded men crept out of the fields into ra- 
vines, and coppices, and thickets ; that after three days 
had been pas.-ed in searching for them, many were still 
lying unfound. Many were found so far -pent that they 
died ere they could be taken to the hospital. 

There are hundreds of men hiding themselves in ra- 
vines, and coppices, and thickets, on the battle-field of life, 
who need medicament, healing, care, and consolation ; and 
if you were to go out searching for them, you should ev- 
ery day find men. here and there, crying out in their dis- 
tress, and asking for sympathy and help. 



THERE i- an army of memorable suffer, rs who suffer 
inwardly, and not outwardly. The world's battle-; 
been in the heart chiefly. More heroism i 
displayed in the household and in the closet, I think, 
than on the most memorable military battle-iiel ; 
lory. 

Kaulbach'fi most remarkable painting is fo mded 
on a legend, that on a certain annii irits were in 

the hai-it of assembling and fighting in the air. However 

that may be, the battle- of the spirit- and the battl' 

or, in the Christian conflict, are much more memo- 
rable than any of the declared bait' ind of the 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 301 

body. And although these spiritual and airy battles seem 
to be without trumpet, and without record, and without 
a witness ; although there are no poets that chant the 
praise of the closet ; although there are no historians that 
chronicle the conflicts of a man with his own spirit, with 
pernicious habits, with evil inclinations, with violent temp- 
tations ; although the eye of a man cannot see these 
things, yet they are not un watched. Angel eyes see what 
our eyes are too gross to see. God, over all, takes notice 
of everything that concerns us. We are His children, 
and He hangs over us in love as a mother over the cra- 
dle. He sees our sufferings, and will remember them. 



It is a great thing to have been put into this life 
through a right gate. If it be a golden gate, covered all 
over with glorious inscriptions and legends and memories 
of past goodness, no man can thank God enough. Did 
your mother travail in faith and prayer ? Were you born 
amid supplications ? Were songs, not of angels, but of 
one scarcely less than angelic, round about your advent ? 
Were you baptized in your cradle before priestly hands 
made aspersion of water ? Did you come forth into life 
from out of a household of faith ? It is no small thing 
that God nested you thus, and that He gave you such a 
parentage and such a beginning in life. Have you ever 
made it an object of thought ? 



Among the Alps, when the day is done, and twilight 
and darkness are creeping over fold and hamlet in the 
valleys below, Mont Rosa and Mont Blanc rise up far 
above the darkness, catching from the retreating sun 
something of his light, flushed with rose-color, exquisite 
beyond all words or pencil or paint, glowing like the gate 
of heaven. 



302 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

And so past favors and kindnesses lift themselves up in 
the memory of noble natures, and long after the lower 
parts of life are darkened by neglect, or selfishness, or 
anger, former loves, high up above all clouds, glow with 

divine radiance, and seem to forbid the advance of night 
any further. 

If your God is made out of conceptions derivefl from 
the great and heartless round of the natural world ; if you 
have a great crystalline God, such as philosophy deduces 
from the material globe, you can conceive of no such thing 
as His detracting from His dignity by coming down to 
burrow, as you call it, in this lower sphere. If you have 
a God whom mountains represent, or if you have a vast 
marble God, that sits as the central idol of the universe, 
it is to you contemptible to think of His bowing down 
and coming among men ! 

But if you have a God fashioned from the elements 
revealed in the human soul, if you understand that great- 
ness in the Divine Bein^ does not mean muscular great- 
ness, nor physical greatness, but purity, and depth, and 
scope of all the feelings of the heart, then the greater 
your God is, the more exquisite will be the things He 
will do in detail, the more possibility will there be of 
His descending and coming among men, and the more 
certainly will He be expected to be found among His 
family. As the mother is found wdiere her child cries, 
and a- the father is found where his son stumbles, SO we 
should expect that, if God is a being whom we may knew 
from the analogies of our own nature, He would be found 
living where men are tempted, and where they sin, and 
suffer, and die. 

This is the whole New Testament view of Christ. It 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 303 

springs naturally and inevitably from a God who is 
Father. It cannot be grafted on any other view. 



If you measure any religious proceeding according to 
the highest standard of the mind, there is nothing this 
side of Calvary that can be looked upon with compla- 
cency. The whole reformatory work of mankind goes 
on, and ever has gone on, imperfectly. The world is 
full of imperfection. And no person should measure 
things by strict propriety. Religious courses should not 
be measured by it. Such courses are scoffed at by men 
because they are so full of imperfections. They are full 
of imperfections, — as full as summer woods are of flies ; 
as full as the harvest-field is of worms ; as full as the 
corn-field is of mildewed ears ; as full as nature is of 
rudenesses. The tropics bear, the temperate zones bear, 
the extreme zones bear beautiful flowers and delicious 
fruits, and the earth is full of evidences of God's good- 
ness ; although there is bark, although there are poison 
insects and noisome things, although there are cutting 
edges of rocks, although there are morasses, and although 
there is miasma. 

Carrion-crows and turkey-buzzards are the only things 
that like carrion, and hunt for it. And where I see men 
going round and watching for faults and imperfections, 
and seeing nothing good, I mark those men, " Turkey- 
buzzards and carrion-crows." For the dove shall fly 
through that sunlit air that reveals naught but loathsome 
corruption to the crow and the buzzard, and shall see no 
carrion, and only blossoming growths and sweet fields. 
What you see, depends upon the eye with which you look. 
If your eye is gangrene, you will see only putrefying 
sores. And if a man wants to see evil things, he can see 



804 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

enough of them, — in ministers; in churches; in secta, 
new or oM ; in pi I Ihristians that do not hold out; 

or in professed Christians that do hold out, O, how queerly ! 

For men are crazy and sick. Tlie whole w<n-ld i> an hos- 
pital. The best men walk like men just trying to walk 
And what would you think of a man that should stand a> 
the door of an hospital, and laugh till he could not hoi* 
to the door-post at the men that had been cured and 
discharged? There comes a man with one leg; there 
comes another Btaggering from the effects of a wound 
that has made him a cripple tor life; there COmes anoth- 
er whose face wa9 burnjt and Bcarred by the powder-flash 
in battle, because he was so clo-e to the enemy, before 
whom lie would not retreat ; and what won Id you think 
of a man who should stand and look at them, and laugh. 
and Bay, "Cured! cured! That is the beauty of health, 
is it ? " 

Now, the world is full of invalids. All men are sick. 
Everybody is imperfect, and will be till God gives DS 
final perfection. And what do you think of those men 
that stand looking at revivals of religion, the results of 
God's influence in the world, and only Bee . and 

tie- Btaggering, bloated, dropsical forms of the men that 
emerge From them? It is pitiful for the men who are 
the subjects of them, but it i> a thousand time- worse for 
those who are critics of these. 



I BEE in many churches, and among many Christians 
and devout ministers, what seems to me to !»«• uninstructed 
wisdom, or rather great folly. A man Buppoees that he 

i^ converted. They say, M If he i- converted, his conver- 
sion i- a work of Grod : and if it is a work of Gk>d, it will 
fttand. If he hold- out, we will receive him: and if' not, 

he will go back to the world ! " 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 305 

Suppose I had lain where all night I had heard the dis- 
charge of minute guns ; suppose as the morning dawned I 
saw here and there parts of a ship that had sunk ; sup- 
pose among the fragments I saw a man that had survived 
the wreck, and who, clinging to a plank, was working his 
way to shallow water; suppose that as he got off and 
staggered toward the shore a wave took him and swept 
him out again ; and suppose that, as he gathered his 
remaining strength and got upon his feet once more, and 
made a desperate struggle to save himself from a watery 
grave, I sat and said to myself, " I think that fellow may 
escape : I will watch him, and if he succeeds in getting 
to the shore and out of the water, I will take care of 
him " ? I would deserve to be drowned myself! If you 
see a fellow-creature in a perilous situation like that it is 
your business to rush down and seize him, and give your 
strength to his weakness, and bear him so that the reflu- 
ent waves shall not carry him back. 

Here is a man that has been gambling. In some afflic- 
tion he goes to this or that church, that perhaps is a 'god- 
send church to him ; and he says, " Would to God that I 
could live a better life ! " Men seeing him there, say, 
" I wonder what he is here for ! " as if a gambler had not 
a soul, and had no business in a church ! He weeps ; 
and they say, " As sure as I live, I saw the fellow cry ! " 
And it is whispered about that he is under conviction ; 
and these good people say, " God's grace is very power- 
ful, and even this man may be saved : we will watch him, 
and if he holds out let us receive him, and be kind to 
him ! " But in the beginning when ten thousand fiery 
fiends are round about him ; when his evil associates are 
plucking at him ; when the channels are yet deep in 
which his life has run ; when hundreds of malign influ 



306 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

enees are crying out to him, " Return ! return! return r 
and when God's call conies faint to his ears, so that he is 
in doubt as to whether it is God that call-, — then is the 
time to run down to him, and, it' he is not quite sincere, 
make him so by kindness and sympathy. 



Let me tell you that those hours when you feel a 
strange drawing toward that which is pure and true and 
right, are hours of God's visitation. Your soul is not far 
from its Maker in such hours. Be grateful for t 
periods of peculiar yearning away from evil and toward 
good. Take them. They are open doors to your prison- 
house. Are there any bad habits, any evil courses to 
which you have been addicted, about which you have 
pondered, and of which you have said, "0 that I could 
be set free from them"? Now there will come hours, 
probably before a week passes, in which God will say to 
you, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
and Christ shall give thee light." Venture; break away 
from your wicked ways ; do not wait till your impulses 
are stronger; do not wait till the spark becomes a flame; 
take a little, and go to that toward which it points. You 
know it was a star that led the wise men to the place 
where; Jesus lay. When but a single .-tar shim s from 
that which is right and pure and true, follow it, and it 
will lead you to the place where the young child Jesus 
lies. Are there not many in our midst that are borne 
down by perplexities of business, cares of the family, 
and trouble of various kinds, who feel themselves solemn- 
ly called of God to reformation of life, reformation of 
morals? Are there not men thai arc pursuing Becret 
courses of undetected wrong, who have aspirations to 
lift themselves above their entanglements and besetting 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 307 

gins ? Are there not times that come to some in which 
they reflect upon their wrong conduct, and desire to do 
right? These are times of salvation to you: I do not 
mean to men in general, but to you, dishonest man ; to 
you, insincere man ; to you, impure man ; to you, drink- 
ing man ; to you, sinful, worldly nature. These times 
when God calls, and you cannot but hear, are your set 
times of salvation, in which God has come with all- help- 
ful power. 

It matters little to me what school of theology rises, or 
what falls, so only that Christ may rise and appear in all 
His Father's glory, full-orbed, upon the darkness of this 
world ! It matters little to me what church comes forth 
strong, or what becomes weak, so only that the poor, the 
sinful, the neglected, the lost among men, may have pre- 
sented to them, in the church, a Saviour accessible, 
reached easily by the human understanding, and avail- 
able in every hour of temptation, of remorse, or of want ! 



If a man lives for his own selfish enjoyment, it makes 
no difference that he wrongs no one. It is wicked for a 
man who is blessed of God with great intellectual power, 
and who is born to a station in which he can command 
his support without labor, to shut himself up in a library, 
and be a student, and devour books for eighty years, even 
though he may never injure a fellow-creature. To gor- 
mandize books is as wicked as to gormandize food. You 
have no more right to be a literary epicure than to be a 
physical epicure. And if a man makes his only aim in 
life scholarship, and lives merely for his own mental grat- 
ification, he is a criminal. If a man follows art simply 
for his own pleasure, he cannot justify himself by saying, 



SOS ROYAL TRUTHS. 

%> I never injured a fly.* That is not the question. Did 
you ever benefit a fly ? With all your powers and oppor 

tunnies, what have you done for the [rood of ot! 
You should give as well a- receive. We are divinely 

Jit that it is more blessed to give than to receive; 
and we Bhould h<>hl a man accursed in this world just in 
irtion a- he I and opportunities for use- 

fulness, if he appropriates those capacities and opportu- 
nities merely for his own private enjoyment For if there 
be one truth taught in the New Testament more emphat- 
ically than another, it is. that moral inditTerence to an- 
other man's welfare is a sin and a crime. It is not enough 
to say, " I have not imbrued my hand in bl<>od ; I have 
not stricken down anybody; I have wrong ly." 

Moral indifference is culpable. The fact that we are 
stronger and better than our fellow-men does not ju>ti fy 
it. That fact makes it more guilty. We have no right 
to live entirely for our own sake, and not at all for the 
Bake of others. -Freely ye have received, free! 
said the Master to the disciples. He made the ben 
tions of which they were the r . the endowm 

which had been conferred upon them, to be the measure 
of that which they were to bestow upon others. Paul 
said. U I am a debtor to the Gentiles." Why i 
debtor to the Gentiles ? What did I them? Well, 

it pleased God to give him such abundant revelations in 
spiritual truth and life, that he knew more than the wis- 

philosophers and priests of the Gentile-, and he felt 
himself to be their debtor in the measure of his superior- 
itv to them. 



Tin: heart of God is tt 1; and men 

that have been strivii _ get well by medi them- 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 3Qg 

selves, becoming no better, but rather growing worse, at 
last gain this conception of God as one whose nature it is 
:eept man, not on account of any arrangement or plan 
that He has made, but for the purpose of healing him. 
When a man lays his case at the feet of his Master and 
says. - Lord. I am a sinner come to be healed of sin," 
with grace and benignity his Lord and Master says, 
i% Thee I accept. Thou art my child. I forgive the sin3 
thou hast committed in the past, and accept thee for guid- 
ance, and education, and salvation in the future." The 
point of adhesion between the human heart and the Sav- 
iour is just the same as that between the patient and the 
physician, which is the incompetence of the patient to 
take care of himself and heal himself. It is his inability 
to take care of and heal himself that leads the patient to 
go to the physician, that he may be taken care of and 
healed. It is of this that Christ speaks when He says, 
u They that are whole need not a physician, but they that 
are sick." u I am not come to call the righteous, but sin- 
ners to repentance.'' 

TThex a sinner can go to Christ and say. ,; I have 
committed my soul to Thee ; Thou hast accepted it ; 
Thou wert not deceived when Thou didst accept it : Thou 
knewest what was the strength of my pride and vanity : 
Thou knewest the whole gulf-stream of selfishness that 
was in me ; Thou knewest the force of my inordinate 
affections ; Thou knewest all the imperfections of my 
nature ; there is nothing in me that Thou didst not know; 
Thou didst undertake my case with a knowledge of all 
my weaknesses and wickednesses ; and I am no worse 
now than when Thou didst take me. Thou art my physi- 
cian ; Thou art my schoolmaster; Thou art my guide; 



310 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

and in the end Thou shalt be my exceeding great reward, 
■ — and this not because I am good, but because Thou art 
good." That is enough. It will meet every case. In 
every exigency of life, Christian brethren, this is your 
refuge ; not your own works of righteousness, not your 
own power to do good, but (). the exhaustless bounty 
and power of Him that has loved youfor His own name's 
.sake. 



Have you never seen how when they were finishing 
the interior of buildings they kept the scaffolding up? 
The old Pope, when he had Michael Angelo employed 
in decorating the interior of that magnificent structure, 
the Sistine Chapel, demanded that the Bcaffolding should 
be taken down so that he could see the glowing colors 
that with matchless skill were being laid on. Patiently 
and assiduously did that noble artist labor, toiling by day, 
and almost by night, bringing out his prophets and sibyls, 
and pictures wondrous for their beauty and significance, 
until the work was done 4 . The day before it was done, if 
you had gone into that chapel and locked up, what would 
you have seen? Posts, planks, rope-, lime, mortal', Blop, 
dirt. Put when all was finished the workmen came, and 
the scaffolding was removed. And then, although the floor 
was yet covered with rubbish and litter, when you looked 
up it was as if heaven it-elf had been opened, and you 

ed into the courts of Gk)d and angels. 

Now, the Bcaffolding is kept around men long after the 
fresco is commenced to be painted; and wondrous dis- 
closures will be made when God shall take down this 
scaffolding body, and reveal what you have been doing. 

By BOITOW and by jov ; by ]^\> which are but bright 
colors, and bv SOITOWS which are but shadows of bright 



ROYAL TRUTHS. 311 

colors ; by prayer ; by the influences of the sanctuary ; 
by your pleasures ; by your business ; by reverses ; by 
successes and by failures ; by what strengthened your 
confidence, and by what broke it down ; by the things 
that you rejoiced in. and by the things that you mourned 
over. — by all that God is working in you. And you are 
to be perfected not according to the things that you plan, 
but according to the Divine pattern. Your portrait and 
mine are being painted, and God by wondrous strokes 
and influences is working us up to His own ideal. Over 
and above what you are doing for yourself. God is work- 
ing to make you like Him. And the wondrous declara- 
tion is, that when you stand before God and see what 
has been done for you. you shall be f; satisfied." 0. word 
that has been wandering solitary and without a habitation 
ever since the world began, and the morning stars sang 
together for joy ! Has there ever been a human crea- 
ture that could stand on earth while clothed in the flesh, 
and say. ;; I am satisfied :> ? What is the meaning of the 
word? Sufficiently filled ; filled full ; filled up in every 
part. And when God's work is complete, we shall stand 
before Him. and, with the bright ideal and glorified 
conception of heavenly aspiration upon us. looking up to 
God. and back on ourselves, we shall say, u l am satis- 
fied n ; for we shall be like Him. Amen. Why should 
we not be satisfied ? 

The work of securing your salvation is a real business. 
Not by dreaming ; not by sweet sentimentalities ; not by 
going into a congregation and chanting hymns that bless 
God. and weeping at prayers that touch the fountains of 
susceptibility, and thinking airy thoughts of the past and 
rosy thoughts of the future, — not by these things can 



312 ROYAL TRUTHS. 

you be saved. Be born again. Turn round and say, 
— and you might as well Bay it, — "The day in which I 
begin to try to live for God is my birthday." 

O, blessed promise ! O, wondrous economy of grace 1 
by which a man, after having lived forty or fifty year- in 
sin, can start again, God saying to him, U I will cancel the 

past ; we will let that go for nothing ; you may Bet up 

business again, and begin as if you had never -tumbled 
and done wrong." Is there grace to help in such a time 
of need ? Yes. There is a descending Spirit of God, 
there is an inspiration of God, there is a Divine power, 
which, when you are willing to be helped, will help you 
in every time of need. God will help a man that will 
help himself. Try it. Put God to proof, and see if these 
words be not true. 



When we shall come to Zion, and stand before God, 
it will then plainly appear that of all the myriads whose 
radiant faces shine like stars in the firmament there, not 
one from earth lias come up except by the mediation, the 
patient instruction, and the forgiving love of the Redeem- 
er ; and we shall turn and say, '• Not unto us, but unto 
thy name, be the praise of our salvation, forever and 
forever ! " 





INDEX. 



Abelard and Heloise, « 

Accessibility of Men, ..... 

Advantage of having a Rule of Life, 

Adversity the Test of Hope, 

All Things Naked and Open, . 

American Slavery not Hebrew Slavery, but Roman, 

Annie Howard, . . . . . . 

Another Life, ...... 

" Are ye not much better than they? " 

Ashamed of Myself, . 

Aspiration in every Man, .... 

Assaulting God through His Children, . 

Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, 

Beginning Life, ...... 

Beware of the Religion of the Counter, 

Bible and the Saddle, ..... 

Bobolink, The, ...... 

Bodily Organization Wonderful, . . . 

Body, The, the Scaffolding of the Soul, . 
Bruised Reed — Smoking Flax, 
Burying the Casket, not the Jewel, . 
" By their fruits ye shall know them," . 

" Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? " . 
Character makes Condition, .... 
Child, The, and his Playthings, 
Child's First Doubt of its Parent's Perfection, The, 
Children come in the Seeming of Angels, . 
Children of Fear, ..... 

Christ, A Personal, • 



Pagh 

145 

299 

155 

9 

56 
127 
101 
205 
204 
299 

22 
135 

185 
37 
82 
40 

205 
37 

310 
53 

195 

158 

267 
259 
117 
131 
132 
171 
280 



su 



INDEX. 



Christ, A Precious Manifestation of, . , 

Christ Better than Theology or Churches, . 

Christ Doing the Will of llis Father, . 

Christ's Awakening Tower, ..... 

Christ's Curative Relation to the Human Soul, 
Christ's Demand of Every Man, .... 

Christ's Individuality and Personality, . 

Christ's Life the True Consolation, .... 

Christian Brotherh ..... 

Christian Character not an Inventory of Negatives, 
Christian Contentment and Philosophical Contentment, 
Christian Life and a Worldly L ipatible, A, • 

Christian Life like a Progressive River, 
Christian Life not like a Canal, .... 

Christian, The, Related to all Men, 

Christians Accept the Divine Idea of their Character, 

Christians like Glass Beehives, .... 

Christians like Freight-engines, .... 

Christians ought to be Warriors, .... 

Christianity and Imagination, ..... 

Christianity a System of Liberty and Joy, 
Christianity neither Duty nor Drudgery, . 
Christianity Non-repressive of Life, 
Christianity not Asceticism. ..... 

Church making known the Wisdom of God, The, . 
Churches like Conservatories, ..... 

Churches ought to be Lights of the World, 

City Lite 

Clock of the Conscience, The, .... 

Cloudless Natures, ....... 

Comfort in Trouble, ...... 

Coming Boldly to the Throne, .... 

Coming into Life through a Right Gate, 
Commentary, A Living, ...... 

('.1111111011 Life, The Piteousness of, ... 

Conclusion of a Voyage the Test oi' its S 

I -mation of Hope Wanting, .... 

Conjunctive Particle, The, ..... 

I lection between Spiritual and Secular Bankrn] 
« (summation of our Life-work, .... 

•npt for the Common People the Guilt of the Phari 
I mptaud ( ition of the Spirit of the Bible, 

of the, in Paul's Days and in ours, 
. The, and the Garden, ...... 

ifixion of the Passions, ...... 



INDEX. 315 

Daisies of Life, The, and the Plough of Trouble, . . 71 

Darkness in the Alps, ....... 301 

Deceits of language, ....... 65 

Defeat and its uses, ....... 35 

Despotism Unchangeable, . . . . . .31 

Devotion the Means — Piety the Result, . . . 241 
Dew-drops, . . . . . . . . .67 

Difference between Dependence upon and Communion with God, 282 

Difference between Heathenism and Old Testament Worship, 115 

Difference between Paul's Christianity and ours, . . 16 

Difficulty of Subduing Reason, ..... 141 

Disappointments and their Uses, ..... 23 

Divine Government, Facts of the, ..... 268 

Doctor Sun, ........ 42 

Doctrinal Preaching, ....... 250 

Does the Christian Sin ? 198 

" Don't Care," Infidel's, and the Christian's, ... 97 

Drop of Water, The, . 289 

Dwarfed Bodies, ........ 46 

Dying in Harness, ....... 21 

Earnestness in doing Right an Omnipotent Example, . .131 
Education and Development, . . . . . 114 

Education for this Life and the Next, .... 230 

Elements of Hatred to God in every Man, . • . 121 

Employment of Time, . . . . . .66 

Encouragement from the Doctrine of the New Birth, . 119 

Epistles of Christ, 202 

Erroneous Conceptions of Divine Worship, . . . 238 
Essentials, not Accidental Relations, . . . .133 

Every Man can Sin, . . . . . . . 114 

Excitement better than Silence and Death, . . .129 

Excuses at Day of Judgment Melting at God's Look, . 201 
Existence of Evil Spirits, ...... 85 

Expedients and Principles, . . . . . . 117 

Experience Enriches Life, ...... 26 

Faculties Ineradicable, ...... 61 

Faith has no Tendency to Produce Carelessness, . .199 

Faith, The Order of, 21 

Faith, The Radiancy of, . . . . . . .95 

Falling off in Religious Culture, ..... 291 

Fear False and True, ....... 94 

Fighting Pride and Vanity, . . . . . . 145 

Filial Trust, . 169 



31G 



IXDEX. 



Finding out how to Live, 

Pled for Refuge — The Anchor of Hope, . 

Floats on the World-tide, 

Folly of Questioning the Divine Wisdom in r< 

eminent, ..... 

Folly of Waiting for Conviction, . 

s, The Ruling, .... 

Forfeited Immortality, 
Formation of Young Men's Ideas, 
Fortune, A Princely .... 
Free Speech the Tonic of Nations, 
Freshness of God's Promises, 

Genteel Christians, ..... 

Gladn ss, A Source of . 

God at the Helm, ..... 

M God " suggests Care, Kindness, Goodness, 

God Supplies Materials — Man Works, 

God Supreme, but not Solitary, 

God the hest Judge of Man's Needs, . 

God the Centre of Glory, 

God's Bride, ...... 

God's Fatherhood to the Christian, 

God's Gentleness, ..... 

God's Glory to he Interpreted in Christ Jesus 

vernment Unseen, 
God's Hidden Ones, .... 

rnal, .... 

t'a Love not Dependent on our Character, 

- Payments, ..... 
God's Sovereignty in his Love, 

G 1*8 Thoughts not as Man's Thoughts . 
I s Union with Man, 

Coming into the Soul without 

- Word an Unopened Treasure, 
God's Word a spiritual Treasury, 

hildren, . . 
G ss Profitable for all Things, . 

i . i by the World after Deal 

Going (ore ( lod with our Guilt, 
Going Down like the Glacier, 
Golden Mean in Religion, The, 
Goodness smarter than Baseness, . 

( rOSpel, The, a Sword, .... 

1 omprehensiveness, The, 



pect 



of 



Gov- 



:>cr, 



INDEX. 



317 



Grace necessary for Growth in Man, . . . 
Green Devils, ...... 

Grief should be Embosomed in Hope, • • 
Grindstone, The World a, . . • 
Growing Rich by Giving, .... 

Guilty Silence, ...... 

Habits of Hearing, ...... 

Happiness and Prosperity, .... 

Hard to be a Saint in a Golden Niche, 

Hatred of Selfishness in Others, not in Ourselves, 

Health and Happiness, ..... 

Heaven, a Daily .... 

Hidden Reverence for the Bible, 

Holy Ghost, The Doctrine of the, . 

Home-sickness of the Heart, 

Honesty in Business, 

Honors only Useful in this Life, 

Hospital, The World's, 

Hours of God's Visitation, 

How the World Values Things, 

How to be Released from Inclinations, 

How to Come to Christ, 

How to produce Conviction of Christ's Divinity, 

How to stop Feelings, . 

Human Heart, The, and its Effects, . 

Human Life a Campagna, 

Human Weathercocks, 

Humboldt and the Young Indian, 

Humility and Strength the Divine Ideal of Character, 



Ideas Cosmopolitan, 

Ignorance of what Concerns Ourselves, 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth," 

" I must Take Care of my Religion," 

« I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, 3 

Imaginary Troubles, 

Imagination God's Self in the Soul, 

Imbecile Men, .... 

Immediatism the Fool's Philosophy, 

Imperfection, The World full of, 

Importance of Self, 

Impossibility of Incarnating Ideas in Words, 

Impressions we Leave of God and Christ, 

" la honor preferring one another," . 



318 



IXDEX. 



Incarnation Mystery, The. 
Incompatibility of Faith and Much Thought, 
Increasing Distance of our Ideal, . 
Infinity, ...... 

Influence of Talk, 

[oseparableness of the Soul and Christ, 
Intensity of the Divine Love, 
Intolerable Conscientiousness, . 
Intrinsic Wealth, .... 

Invisible Witnesses of Human Conduct, 

Inward Light Quenched, 

Inward Sufferers, .... 

Inwardly Rich and Inwardly Poor, 

" It doth not yet appear what we shall be," 

Justice Grows upon us, 

Justice Worth more than Corn-fields, 

Last First, The, and the First Last, 

Law an Index of God's Way, . 

Laws of Nature in Abeyance, 

Leniency to Others — Rigidity with Ourselves 

Life a March, ..... 

Life Blossoming at Different Seasons, 

Life God's School-house, 

Life of Piety a Common Life, . 

Likeness of Men to Machinery, 

Likeness of Mothers to the Saviour, . 

Likeness of the Constitutionally Benevolent to God, 

led Christian Characters, 
L ssof Pi ra rial Identity in the Church's Id* 
Love and Worship, .... 
Love the Chiefest Thing, 
Love the Gange of True Manhood, . 

•he Motive Power, 
The Savor of, 
! . ■■ ring the Standard, 
Lugubrious Complaining about the World, 

M 1*1 as a Spiritual Being) 

Man ( Sod's Courier, . 

Man like a Cask of Wine, 

Man to be Measured by that which makes him Man, 

Man to be Measured by the Faculties given him, 
i Development the Measure of his Happin 



137 



INDEX. 



M% 



Man's freedom and the Absolute Will, . . , .31 
Man's Good the Highest End, 114 

3 Ignorance of his Keal Nature, . . . .110 

i's Reproduction of God's Dealings, . . . 234 

:>od, A Eeceipt for, ...... 95 

Manifestation of the Divine Love, .... 12 

lofactoiy, The World a, 233 

nal Love a Eevelation of the Love of God, . . 2 

Michael Angelo and the Sistine Chapel, . . . '310 
Microscopic Differences, . . . . . . 55 

Mirth God's Medicine, 248 

Misapplied Forethought, ...... 96 

.■-;-ere, The, of the New Testament, .... 145 

Mission of Suffering, ....... 122 

king Callings, ....... 73 

Meaning in Flowers, . . . . . • . 124 

Meanness of Cowardly Christians, ..... 97 

Meanness of Slavery, . . . . . . . 247 

Men get what they Deserve, . . . . . . 1SS 

need Grinding, . . . . . . . 195 

a not to be Measured by their Callings, . . .137 

Men Unconscious of God's Nearness, .... 200 

Men who get what they Deserve — Nothing, . . .78 

^■e of the Trees from God, . . . . . 180 

Metallic lives, .108 

Moral Insensibility, . . . . . , . 256 

Moral Principle, The Might of, 34 

Moral Principle the True Compass, . . . . 131 

Mother's Teachings. A, 288 

My Blether's Hyacinth, . . . • . . 17 

Natural Things afford no Analogue of Spiritual Development, 95 
Necessity ::r a New Birth, ...... 17 

Necessity of Expression, . 116 

Nervous Scrupulosity. ....... 93 

New Testament Yiew of God in Christ, .... 302 

Niagara, Fool Crossing, . . . , • . 152 
No Barrenness in the Soul's Summer, . . . .75 

\\nger of Over-exalting Christ, . . . . 216 

No Death to those who Know how to Die, . . .73 

Nc Experience Exactly Pure and Narural, . . . 150 

No Home in this World, . 232 

Nc Homeliness in Natural Objects, . . , 115 

No Isolation in Creation, . . . . . , .248 

No Peace Kill Eire Consummation of Purity, . . , 222 



820 



IXDEX. 



No Room for ITesitrition in Worshipping Christ, 

No Salvation out of Christ, . 

> ly without his Equivalents, . . 

Not Quality, bat Quantity, . 

u Not unto us, but unto Thy Name!" 

Odorous Vines, ..... 

Old Katy 

Old Testament Cheerfulness, 

Omnipotence of Small Things, 

Only One Way, 

Opposition to God both Open and Declarative 
Outward Life not an Index of Inward State, 
Outward Prosperity, .... 
Outward Success Worthless in Itself, 
Overcome Evil with Good, . 
Owl and Bat Philosophy, 

Parent, The, a Bible to His Family, 

Parental Love an Image of God's Love, . 

Paths of Light and Beds of Darkness, . 

Patriarchs of the Pool, . 

Paul's Contentment, .... 

Paul's Self-abnegation, .... 

Paul's Wish for his Kinsmen, 

Peace at Last, ..... 

Penalty of Guilty Knowledge, 

Permission to Labor for God Undeserved, . 

Perpetual Recipients, .... 

nal Experience an Evidence of Christ's Di 
Picture-gallery, A, 
1 n shooting, ... 

Pitiableness of merely Wealthy Men, 
Playing on One String, .... 
Plenty in the Father's House, 
Policy of the Devil, . 

] r of Public Sentiment, . 

Power of the Ke; .... 

Praise, The Union of, . 
Preaching by Silent Example, . 

ii- Stones, ..... 
P sent Premonitions of a Coming Future, 
Present Trials trifling when compared with Com 
Pride. The D .... 

Principles like Bayi of Light, 



»y» 



Dg GlOfT, 



INDEX 



B2J 



Professional Air ::P:e:~. 
Premises fir every C:nE:ien. 
Pr:-.EIen:e and Lack. 
Providence — Not Fatality, - 
Pruning by the Heavenly Husbandman, 
PrnEeLErEs Essential Ilea. 
Paritar.s tiie S^c-ris :: GoE . 



I :_ ;'. itini" :y 
Kriiii :r. like :1 

Krl:: :n net .: 
._: :r not rr 
I EEder, tiie E 
_i: :\ vr :r V 
EeliE: us Er:-: 
Eenn:::e:;.ti:n 
Re: in tat:: i a:: 
R:-.;:.:::::: : 
E i'nlntitns r.v 
E::k Meral _>': 
Ri-htetnsness 

Reman:!: Id-rS 



m n : a t : : t: 



: :: 1 Eles-::-.^. 



-an Life 



Sateath. A W. : 
$K~±:iz.? Pie: 



— E:r. 



Diselosnres 



:ar Nature and Condition, 

netessarv for rhe Christian, 



Love, 



ives for ILLs ovm Glory, 
in Pastoral Visitation, 



322 



INDEX. 



Sin of Living for Selfish Enjoyment, 
Single Virtues of Little Account, 
Society a Training-school for Heaven, . 

Solitude or* the Divine Love, .... 

>mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
< Jod in every Man, 
Soul Formless, The, ..... 

5 il, The Bountiful Mother of the, . 

Soul, The — Who Sees or Knows it? . 

Soul's Likeness to a Seed, .... 

Soul-ancestry, ...... 

Soul-longings, ...... 

Soul-union, ...... 

Sounding the Depths of the Precipice of Life, . 
Spiritual Scale for Measuring Character, 
Spiritual Truths written on Fleshly Tables, 
Spiders' Webs Invisible, .... 

Spontaneousness of Christ's Life, 

Spring in the Soul, ..... 

Spring, The World's, ..... 

St Peter's at Koine and the Epistle to the Romans 
Staple Cause of Scepticism, .... 

u Stand fast in the faith/' .... 

Standing in the Presence of God, 

Strength in Weakness, .... 

" Strive to enter in at the strait gate," 

Striving toward Something Better, 

Stunted Love, ...... 

Sudden Conversions not to be Disbelieved, 

Suffering Blossoming in Heaven, 

Suffering the Measure of Love, 

Superfluous Self-denial, ..... 

Superstitious Piety, ..... 

Superstitious Beading of the Bible, . 
Surface Feelings, ..... 

Sweetness of Resting on Simple Faith, 
Sympathy ought to run Downward, not Upward, 

Taking Advantage of the Love of God, 
Tantalizations, ...... 

Teachings of the Empty Cradle, 

Telegraph, The Longest, .... 

Terrible Convictions of Sin Better than None, . 
Theology Changeable, ..... 
Thistle-down, ....... 



of these/ 



INDEX. 



328 



Three in One, The, 

" Thy will be done ! " . 

Times in which Men ought to Wish to Live, 

Too Little Eelaxation, 

Treating God's Promises like Bank-notes, 

Tree of Life, The, .... 

Trial the Proof of Things, 

Trouble and Consolation, 

Trouble and its Uses, . . . 

Truant Child and his Hidden Guilt, The, 

Two Kinds of Heroes, . . . 

Two Meanings of the "Word " Nature," 

Two Ways of Preaching Love, 

Unappreciated Men, 

Unexpectedness of Death, . 

Unfathomable, The Soul, 

Unfinished Work, .... 

Uninstructed Wisdom, 

Union with a Great Idea, 

Unison and Concord, 

Universal Belief of the Immortality of Love, 

Unknown Habits, .... 

Unreasonable Doubts and Fears, . 

Unreasonable Forebodings, 

Unsearchableness of Love, . 

Up-hill and Down-hill Patience, 

Utilitarians, .... 



Value of Things, The True Measure of the, 
Vanity Desecrates all Things, 
Vicarious Suffering in every Detail of Life, 
Visions of Christ, .... 



Walking Bibles, . 

Walking on Stilts, .. . . 

War's Lessons, ..... 

Watch unto Prayer, .... 

Weakness of Worldly Things, . 

What it is to become a Christian, . 

What Men are Built of, . 

What to Die on, . 

When the Heart begins to Know its Grief, 

WhitfieJd and the Weslevs. . 



324 



INDEX. 



Who arc the Worst Inndelfl ! 62 

Why should our Courage Fail ?..... 57 

Wicked Boldness, ........ 51 

Wonderful Convictions no Test of a Man's Christianity, . 150 

World Music in the Minor Key, 265 




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I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

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VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 



CONTENTS. 

Mary the Mother of Jesus. [Before the Birth of Christ.] 

Mary the Mother of Jesus. [After tne Birth of Christ.] 

Salome: Ambition in Women. 

Susanna : Woman's Practical Ministry. 

Joanna, the Royal Steward's W t ife : Sickness as a Means of Grace. 

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The Weeping Daughters of Jerusalem : Woman's Tears. 

Mary of Cleophas: Woman's Ministry in Sorrow. 

Mary Magdalene: Woman Transformed by Christianity. 

Mary the Mother of Mark:: Woman's Social Ministry. 



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